HERAT, Afghanistan: For a full day after the air strikes in a remote village in western Afghanistan on Wednesday, the only certainty was that the people had perished.
The most basic facts, who carried out the attacks and how many Taliban and civilians were killed, were impossible to pin down amid denials, contradictory statements and exaggerations.
With the start of peace talks between the Taliban and the government delayed for months, the Afghan war has become a deadlier phase, even as the United States continues to withdraw its forces. Car bombs, roadside bombs, and airstrikes cause carnage across the country, killing dozens of Afghans every day.
But as the war has spread, the exact nature of the attacks and their cost, particularly on civilians, has become increasingly opaque.
The Taliban often flatly deny incidents that kill civilians, even when the bodies are there to be buried. Protests and pressure turn government denials of civilian casualties in its operations into investigations that rarely result in follow-up or responses.
The US military, after a deal with the Taliban in February that was supposed to produce something like a ceasefire between them, has quietly returned to attack Taliban units it considers to be preparing attacks against its Afghan allies, but no longer recognizes Those strikes officially.
Making the battlefield even murkier has been the presence of other militant groups besides the Taliban, including factions with long ties to Al Qaeda, as well as a branch of the Islamic State.
Wednesday’s airstrikes in the Guzara district of Herat province hit a group of 100 to 150 people who had gathered to welcome a Taliban member who had been detained by the government, according to survivors, officials local and community leaders. He was released as part of a prisoner exchange that is supposed to open the way for direct negotiations between the insurgents and the government.
As part of the United States’ deal with the insurgents, the Afghan government was expected to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 Afghan troops. But the government opposed trade at first, and then only agreed to a gradual release of captives after pressure from the Trump administration.
Afghan officials say around 4,000 Taliban prisoners have been released so far, and some of them, they claim, have returned to the battlefield.
The Taliban have released around 800 of the Afghan troops.
As the prisoner swap dragged on for months, the Taliban increased their attacks across the country. Sensing pressure, the Afghan government announced that it was going on the offensive, although its troops have been forced to defend themselves largely against Taliban attacks.
US planes, mostly drones and A-10s, have carried out nearly 40 attacks on Taliban targets since the Feb. 29 deal, said a US military official familiar with the operations. But the Pentagon has not openly acknowledged most of its attacks, in a bid to keep the already unstable peace process going.
In recent days, a bloody wave of violence has intensified. A Taliban roadside bomb killed seven members of the security forces, including senior local officials, in the southern province of Uruzgan.
In northern Baghlan province, the Afghan air force attacked two houses, an intelligence-based attack that Taliban fighters were staying there. Officials later discovered that the insurgents had left and the strikes had killed five civilians, according to the district governor.
In Kandahar province, a Taliban infiltrator killed a dozen policemen.
In the Khogyani district in the east, the Afghan government said 31 Taliban were killed in a battle, which involved strong air power.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States’ special envoy for Afghan peace, condemned the Guzara airstrikes and said civilians were among the victims. It also condemned the avalanche of recent Taliban attacks.
“The past 24 hours have been very violent in Afghanistan and many have lost their lives,” Khalilzad wrote on Twitter. “The Afghan people want an immediate start to the peace negotiations and an agreement that is in their interest. More graves will not move the negotiations forward. “
But exactly what happened in Guzara, and how many people were killed, was still uncertain. Increasingly, the victims appeared to be a mix of Taliban and civilians, as is often the case.
Arbab Sarbeland, a local leader from the neighboring Adraskan district who was there for the ceremony, said helicopters began attacking the area around 9 a.m.After the helicopters left, survivors charged three dead and four wounded in cars. But it turned out to be only the first of several attacks that day.
It is unclear how many times the helicopters circled to strike again, or if other planes were involved as well.
Noor Ahmad Khan, who was in the center of the district during the attack, said that a relative who had sent the village for information had told him that the number of civilians was 12 dead and 22 wounded, but declined to comment on the number of Taliban victims. .
Late Wednesday, Abdul Salam Azimi, the Guzara District Police Chief, said that “about 50 Taliban are killed or wounded.” The Taliban, in a statement that said nothing about the victims of their fighters, said that 8 civilians were killed in the attacks and 12 were wounded.
At the end of the day on Wednesday, it was still unclear who had carried out the attack. U.S. officials said it was not the U.S. Army.
A spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry said that “it had not carried out any air strikes in Herat” and denied claims that one of the strikes had struck a vehicle carrying women and children. What damaged the vehicle, he said, was “actually a roadside bomb.”
But around midnight, the Afghan defense ministry changed its position, admitting that it had been behind the airstrikes and promising to investigate allegations of civilian casualties.
On Thursday, Asadullah Khalid, Afghanistan’s interim defense minister, said he would show evidence that Afghan forces had attacked Taliban fighters and that he was “hoping there will be no civilian casualties.”
On Thursday afternoon, the Defense Ministry released a 30-second video clip as evidence that it had hit the Taliban. The clip, which lacked a date or time stamp, showed a dozen armed men around vehicles and motorcycles. There was nothing in the video to show that they were, in fact, the same men who were killed and wounded on Wednesday.
Assadullah Timory reported from Herat and Mujib Mashal from Kabul. Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reports from Washington and Fahim Abed from Kabul.
