More Afghan civilians die in US-NATO air assault

Just a week after Afghan President Hamid Karzai chastised international forces for being "careless," Afghan officials reported Saturday that possibly 100 or more civilians had been killed in a NATO and US-led assault. The battle in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, which was prompted by a Taliban ambush, began on the night of June 29 and continued into the next morning, Afghan officials said. It ended with international forces bombing several compounds in the remote village of Hyderabad. "More than 100 people have been killed. But they weren't Taliban. The Taliban were far away from there," said Wali Khan, a member of parliament who represents the area. "The people are already unhappy with the government. But these kinds of killings of civilians will cause people to revolt against the government." Another parliament member from Helmand, Mahmood Anwar, said that the death toll was close to 100 and that the dead included women and children. "Very few Taliban were killed," he said. International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman Major John Thomas said: "The civilians who may have died were in the same firing positions with the Taliban extremists who were firing on us." Thomas said "there may be less than a dozen civilians dead." But village elders said they had recovered 45 bodies, mostly women and children, Girishk district chief Dur Alisha said. Such a toll of civilian dead would be the highest since 2002, the year after the Taliban were ousted from power in an invasion led by the United States. The elders said 23 more civilians were wounded and 62 Taliban fighters were killed, according to Alisha. "People are digging under the rubble for more bodies. There's a possibility that more people might be under debris," Alisha said. UPDATE: According to Reuters, NATO and US airstrikes have killed scores of Afghan civilians this week, residents and officials said on July 7. NATO-led and US forces said there are heavy ongoing clashes in Farah province in western Afghanistan and Kunar province in the east and troops in both places had called for air support. Several residents and the head of a district council in Farah said an air attack in the Bala Boluk area killed 108 civilians. "Women and children have been killed and 13 houses destroyed," head of Bala Boluk district council Haji Khudairam told Reuters by telephone. "In the bombing, in total, 108 civilians have been killed." "We are asking the government to send a delegation to see for itself the civilian deaths," said Faizullah, a resident. Residents of Kunar and provincial officials said airstrikes there killed three dozen civilians. Eleven civilians, including nine family members of a man called Mohammad Nabi, were killed in an airstrike on July 5. Then 25 more civilians were killed in another airstrike the next day while they buried the bodies of those killed the day before.