A NATO statement Thursday says a combined NATO-Afghan force was pursuing a Taleban leader in Nangarhar province’s Surkh Rod district on Wednesday, when a man came out of the targeted house threatening them with a gun.

It says the troops killed the man and then discovered he was a police officer. The troops also shot at someone running out of the back of the compound who they believed had a weapon. The soldiers later realized there was no weapon and that they had killed “an unarmed Afghan female adolescent.”

A neighbor, who goes by the name of Ayatullah, says the girl was 12 years old.