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Rift with Karzai worsens as 95 perish in NATO air strike
Western forces were engulfed in bitter controversy yesterday after NATO air strikes on two oil tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan led to carnage with a fireball killing 95 people, dozens of them civilians.
Most of those who perished were burned to death. NATO initially insisted that all the dead were Taliban insurgents but later, after angry protests from residents and officials, they acknowledged there had been civilian deaths.
The attack at the village of Haji Aman, around seven miles from Kunduz, could not have come at a more volatile time in Afghanistan, with intense anger over civilian casualties and an intensifying clash between President Hamid Karzai and Washington over the disputed national election. The incumbent President has repeatedly complained about civilian deaths from Nato air strikes.