KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The Latest on developments in Afghanistan (all times local):
6:10 p.m.
Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry says five soldiers have been killed and 10 more wounded in a friendly fire incident in the country’s south.
The ministry said in a statement Wednesday that the soldiers were taking part in an operation in Tarin Kot in Uruzgan province when they were killed in an airstrike.
There were no additional details.
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2:20 p.m.
Afghan officials are reporting that there has been a friendly fire incident in southern Uruzgan province involving U.S. and Afghan forces and leading to the death of five Afghan troops.
There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Qais Mangal confirmed on Wednesday that there has been an incident involving a firefight in Uruzgan, but couldn’t provide any more details.
He says the Afghans have “a report of a misunderstanding between the U.S. and Afghan forces” but that exact details of what happened are as yet unknown.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Karim Karimi, deputy head of the provincial council, says U.S. forces mistakenly carried out an airstrike at an Afghan base near Tarin Kot, the provincial capital in Uruzgan, followed by a firefight that left the five Afghans dead. He says 10 Afghan troops were wounded.
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noon
An Afghan journalist who has long received death threats has been seriously wounded in a bombing in the country’s southern Helmand province, a Taliban heartland.
Afghan officials say that in the western province of Farah, the Taliban stormed an army checkpoint and killed 10 soldiers the previous night. Also in Farah, a local official was gunned down outside his home on Wednesday.
The attacks were the latest violence in war-torn Afghanistan even as the Taliban and the U.S. concluded another round of negotiations held in Qatar, with both sides reporting progress in the talks.
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