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KABUL - More than 30 civilians were reported killed and dozens wounded on Saturday in an air strike by foreign forces fighting the Taleban in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, a regional official said.
"It happened in the early morning [local time]," provincial official Mohammed Daoud told Reuters. "Between 30-37 civilians have been killed and tens (dozens) of others have been injured."
Other local officials gave different but similar accounts of the casualties.
A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan confirmed the incident, but said his reports from the field said only "a small number" of civilians had been involved.
US Air Force Major John Thomas said that after a long skirmish and under constant fire from the Taleban, ISAF troops called for air support during an operation in Girishk, Helmand province, where the Taleban has been resurgent this year.
"All enemy positions were destroyed, but after friendly forces surveyed the area there were reports of some possible civilian deaths," he said.
"The remains of some people who appeared to be civilians were found among enemy fighters in a trenchline."
Foreign forces in Afghanistan frequently accuse the Taleban of using civilians as human shields.
A Reuters photographer saw several children being treated at a Helmand hospital for injuries they said they received in the airstrike.
The rising toll the conflict is taking on Afghan civilians is a sore point for Western-backed President Hamid Karzai, who is also struggling to stamp out corruption and boost the economy.
Nearly seven years after the Taleban were overthrown in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States, the fundamentalist Islamic group has regained strength and is engaged in daily clashes with US-led forces in the country.
Government officials, residents and aid groups say over 300 civilians have been killed in operations led by foreign forces this year alone. Scores more have been killed in Taleban suicide and roadside bomb attacks.
Earlier on Saturday, visiting Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told a news conference that accidental deaths of civilians should not be compared to the toll caused by the Taleban.
"It is very, very foolish for any person of goodwill to try to create some sort of moral equivalence between NATO and what the Taleban does" he said. "We will make every effort to avoid civilian casualties, against the Taleban, which is making every effort to cause civilian casualties."
- REUTERS
