Jalalabad, November 1:

US-led coalition forces killed three civilians, including two children and a 75-year-old man,

in a raid on a house in eastern Afghanistan.

The coalition confirmed that two children had died in the incident but said the third person killed was a Taliban militant who barricaded himself in a room with his kin.

The troops raided the house in Batti Kot district of Nangarhar province last night following an intelligence report that it was a suspected militant hideout, provincial police chief Ghafoor Khan said.

“They have killed a 75-year old man, a 16-year-old girl and a young boy in the firefight,” said Khan. A woman and child were wounded and taken to the main US base at Bagram, north of Kabul, for treatment while three people were arrested.

The coalition said US-led and Afghan forces had killed a militant after acting on intelligence that facilitators for suicide bombings and attacks using improvised explosive devices were hiding in the house. “While resisting multiple requests to surrender, the militant barricaded himself in a room. Unbeknownst to Afghan forces his family was barricaded in the room with him,” the coalition said.

“It wasn’t until after the hostilities had stopped and the team had performed a search of the room that they found two children dead,” it said.