Seven Afghan children have been killed in a US-led air strike in the southeastern Paktika province near the border with Pakistan.
A coalition statement issued this morning said that the strike occurred as a suicide bomber blew himself up on a police academy bus in Kabul, killing at least 35 people, in the deadliest insurgent attack in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001.
Coalition forces launched the airstrike yesterday on a compound that also contained a mosque and an Islamic school in the Zarghun Shah district of Paktika Province, a coalition statement said.
"Coalition forces confirmed the presence of nefarious activity occurring at the site before getting approval to conduct an air strike on the location," the statement said.
Early reports said seven children at the school were killed in the strike and that "several militants" also were killed. Two suspected militants were also detained.
"We are saddened by the innocent lives that were lost as a result of militants' cowardice," a coalition spokesman said.