Bomb did not hit Afghan villagers, says US

1.00pm

KUNAR, Afghanistan - The US military said its forces had killed more than 20 Islamic militants on Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan, but denied reports it had killed up to eight villagers in the same operation.

Local police and aid workers said earlier that between six and eight villagers were killed by US bombing, nine were wounded and several houses destroyed in Weradesh, in Kunar province's Manogi district.

But Major Scott Nelson at the US military press centre in Kabul said: "We didn't fire on these people."

The US-led forces had "eyes on the ground" that saw their "precision-guided bomb" strike its target, a militant's vehicle with a weapons system, probably a mortar, mounted on it, he said. Nelson said more than 20 militants were killed.

Forces belonging to the Taleban and their ally, renegade commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, are active in the area some 200km east of Kabul in a mountainous region close to the Pakistan border.

Local police and aid workers gave a grim account of casualties among the villagers.

"As a result of the bombing by American planes, six civilians have lost their lives, nine more have been injured and eight houses have been demolished," Kunar's deputy police chief Mohammed Arif Nizami told Reuters in Asadabad, the provincial capital.

Nizami said the bombing occurred at about 2am (10.30am NZT).

An Afghan who worked in the village for a western aid agency was also reported wounded.

"According to the information from our local staff, eight villagers were killed in the bombing. One of our Afghan staff was wounded too, but I was told he is in a stable condition," Gorm Pederson from Danish committee for Afghan Refugees told Reuters.

Nelson said any casualties among the villagers were more likely caused by militants inaccurate rocket and mortar fire.

US-led forces along with Afghan troops engaged the militants after one of their installations came under attack.

Nelson said ground forces moved through the village after the bombing, and cornered a militant who blew himself up with a grenade wounding seven children.

A US military statement said one child was badly hurt, but the rest were stable.

One coalition soldier was wounded along with two Afghan troopers.

About 18,000 US-led foreign troops and the newly formed Afghan National Army are hunting the Taleban and its allies, including Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

Afghans say several thousand civilians have been killed mainly in the south and east of Afghanistan since the United States began its war on the Taleban and al Qaeda in late 2001.

Last December, 15 civilians, including children, were killed by US bombs in southeastern Afghanistan.

Nearly 1000 people have been killed in the country in the past year as militants have stepped up attacks to disrupt a October 9 presidential election.

- REUTERS