At least nine civilians were killed in a night operation by Afghan security forces in the eastern province of Nangarhar late on Monday, officials said, as fighting continued across Afghanistan.
The incident underlines the daily risks facing Afghan civilians as fighting has intensified since the Taliban launched its annual spring offensive last month.
The victims included relatives of the speaker of the Senate, Fazl Hadi Muslimyar, the office of the provincial governor said in a statement.
Eight people were injured, in addition to the nine killed in the operation in Chapahar district, outside the provincial capital of Jalalabad, it said. Some local people put the death toll at 12, with 28 wounded; according to a Reuters report.
The latest figures from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan show 763 civilians were killed and 1,495 wounded in the first three months of the year, a similar level to the corresponding periods of the two previous years.
The violence has spread across Afghanistan in recent weeks with heavy fighting in provinces from Badakhshan, Baghlan, and Faryab in the north to Farah in the west, where the Taliban briefly threatened to overrun the provincial capital, and Ghazni in the centre.
On Tuesday, officials said a district centre in Uruzgan province, on a key transit route from the drug producing regions of Helmand and Kandahar, was under serious threat.
