KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s intelligence agency said on Wednesday that the mastermind of a bloody attack on the agency’s base this week had been killed in an airstrike, but residents and local officials in the area said the airstrike had in fact targeted a group of hunters on a hilltop.

In a daring attack on Monday, the Taliban used an armored Humvee it had seized from Afghan forces, packing it with explosives and driving it onto an Afghan intelligence base to detonate. At least 40 intelligence personnel were killed and 60 others were wounded.

The intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, said in a statement on Wednesday that its forces had traced the mastermind of of that attack, a man they identified as Commander Noman. The agency said it had targeted him and seven others it described as terrorists on Tuesday with an airstrike in Maidan Shahr, in the center of Wardak Province.

“He was targeted in the provincial capital,” the statement added.

The agency did not say who had executed the strike, though Afghan forces often rely on the American military to carry out airstrikes. A spokesman for the American military in Afghanistan said that United States forces had carried out a strike in Wardak, without providing further details.

But the government’s claim soon met with confusion and contradiction.

Sharifullah Hotak, a member of Wardak’s provincial council, said there had been a strike in the province on Tuesday but that the casualties were all civilians and Commander Noman was not among them.

“Six civilians were killed and another was wounded in the drone airstrike,” Mr. Hotak said. “I can show you the bodies of those killed, see if you can find Commander Noman among them.”

According to Akhtar Mohammad Khan Tahiri, the head of provincial council, there is a tradition of hunting in mountains during the winter in Wardak, and the men targeted were hunters.

“These people were all civilians and they were there for hunting,” he said. “The situation is worse in the province — both the Taliban and the government are killing civilians.”

A list of the dead provided by different officials in Wardak included a teenager, Bashir Ahmadi, who was killed along with his father, Qasim.

“He was a simple man who wanted to bring food for his five children,” said Adil Ahmadi, a cousin of Qasim. “They were there to hunt rabbits because it is winter and there isn’t anything to do.”

Adil Ahmadi, who said he was in the valley below the mountain when the strike happened, climbed the mountain after the strike to find the bodies “shattered.” He said Bashir was the oldest of Qasim’s five children, and the youngest of those left is 6 years old.

In addition to disagreement about who was killed, the accounts did not agree on the timing of the strike, though people in the region agreed that only one took place on Tuesday. The Afghan intelligence agency said it was carried out at night, the American military said its strike was in the early afternoon, and local officials said it happened before noon.

Monday’s attack on the intelligence base in Wardak Province was one of the deadliest against the intelligence service in the 17-year war with the Taliban.

While the Afghan police and army have been dying in record numbers, intelligence forces had generally suffered fewer losses, in part because they have better training and equipment.

But in recent years, as regular forces have been stretched by intensifying fighting across the country, Afghan intelligence officers, particularly the agency’s special forces, have been forced to take on tasks they were not accustomed to. They have often found themselves operating like troops, deployed to different areas to hold the line against insurgents.

Mujib Mashal contributed reporting.

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