Coalition strike kills Afghan farmer

An Afghan farmer has died after being wounded in a US-led coalition air strike, launched last week after he was wrongly suspected of planting a roadside bomb, Afghan and NATO officials said Sunday. NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement that "an Afghan civilian died of wounds sustained in an air strike conducted by a coalition forces aircraft". The May 20 strike in the eastern province of Paktya was called in to support ISAF troops, it said. "A subsequent investigation has determined that the individual was not emplacing improvised explosive devices, as originally suspected," it said. He was transferred to a hospital in Kabul where he died, the statement said, expressing regret. Provincial government spokesman Rohullah Samoon told AFP the man was in fact a farmer, and had been shot. President Hamid Karzai this month demanded an end to the use of air strikes in the international war against Taliban extremists in Afghanistan. This followed the bombing of villages earlier this month in the southwestern province of Farah, where the government says 140 civilians were killed. A US military investigation said 20-30 civilians may have died, along with 60-65 Taliban. The US military is meanwhile investigating the May 5 killing of an Afghan civilian in Kabul by US contractors who say they opened fire on a "threatening" vehicle.