KABUL, Afghanistan — After Ahmad Jawad Hijri saw the wounded children in the hospital and learned of the Afghan airstrike that put them there, killing nine others around their age in northern Afghanistan, he never expected that his response would land him in jail.
But Mr. Hijri, then the spokesman for the governor of Takhar Province, was arrested, imprisoned for three days and then fired after telling the news media what had happened — a standard part of his role which he had performed many times before. Top officials in Kabul insisted that only Taliban fighters had been killed in
