Afghan farmers killed by air strike: police

Five farmers were killed by an air strike from Western forces, Afghan police said Thursday. The farmers were loading cucumbers into a taxi in the rural Zhari district near Kandahar city when a military helicopter fired on them, said district police Chief Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi. Sarhadi alleged the strike was conducted by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Lt.-Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker said the U.S. military believes the air strike hit a group of militants loading munitions into a van. Officials will review footage from the Apache helicopter to determine what happened, Sidenstricker said. Villagers in southern Afghanistan expressed outrage on Wednesday after a Western air strike killed three young boys and a man. The U.S. military maintained it had killed four insurgents on motorcycles in Kandahar province and could not confirm any civilian deaths.