KABUL — Amid intelligence reports alleging that Taliban insurgents are holding civilians as hostages, American and Afghan forces moved cautiously through the Taliban stronghold of Marjah on Monday as they pressed the biggest offensive since the U.S. landed troops in Afghanistan more than eight years ago.

The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had issued an apology Sunday for the deaths of 12 civilians who were killed in Marjah, saying that an American rocket “failed to hit intended target” and struck a house 300 yards away. U.S. and Afghan forces in a mixed unit had come under sustained fire before American troops fired the rocket.

However, Afghanistan’s interior minister, Hanif Atmar, gave a different account Monday, saying the dead civilians were being held as hostages.

“The Taliban were attacking [the soldiers] from five places. We took a decision to hit the fort [house] but we didn’t know they had civilian hostages,” Atmar said at a news conference in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province.

The ISAF later suggested that the coalition’s initial apology had been in error. Coalition investigators now believe that the rocket hit its target and two insurgents died in the strike in addition to the 12 civilians, ISAF officials said. They are trying to determine whether those Taliban were holding the civilians prisoner.

Before the operation began, the ISAF had picked up some intelligence that the Taliban planned to detain civilians at gunpoint, ISAF officials said. Now, anecdotal evidence suggests that the Taliban in Marjah are trying to force their way into civilian homes.

There were further indications that Taliban fighters may be taking refuge in homes and setting the residents up as human shields. The ISAF announced Monday that it had killed three other civilians accidentally in the previous 48 hours in Operation Moshtarak, which means “together” in the Dari language. One of the dead men was “inside a building that was used by insurgents” during an engagement, the ISAF said.

The U.S.-led international force has targeted erroneously before but has tried to minimize civilian casualties to win popular support for its campaign.

Separately, an airstrike Monday against suspected militants in neighboring Kandahar province instead killed five civilians, the ISAF said.

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