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KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai has condemned US troops for shooting dead 10 civilians at the weekend as officials said nine more -- five women, four children and an old man -- had been killed in an air strike.
The nine were killed on Sunday local time in Kapisa province, barely 90 minutes' drive northeast of the capital Kabul, the deputy provincial governor, Sayed Dawood Hashimi, said on Monday. That strike followed a rocket attack on a US base.
Both Nato and the US-led coalition force which also operates in the area said they were investigating.
US marines shot dead 10 civilians in the east on Sunday, in what the US military said was a "complex" Taleban ambush involving a suicide bombing and gunfire in a populated area outside the city of Jalalabad, near Pakistan.
The military said the soldiers fired in self-defence and 16 civilians were killed in the suicide raid and subsequent firing.
Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he understood both incidents involved US-led coalition forces rather than Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), but told reporters in Brussels:
"Every civilian casualty is one too many ... I do not think it will influence the great support there is for Nato Isaf forces in Afghanistan."
No provincial or central government official has confirmed the US military's account that the convoy came under rebel attack. Analysts say the killing of civilians by Nato and US troops is sapping public support for the foreign mission here.
Two provincial government officials said on Sunday 10 civilians were killed and more than 25 wounded as US soldiers fled the scene of the attack.
Wounded in hospital said US soldiers just opened fire.
"The Americans fired at us without any justification," said Sayeda Jan, a passenger in a passing vehicle who was shot.
"Karzai should raise his voice and intervene, but he won't because he is thinking about his power. We were in the car and saw the convoy coming from the opposite direction and they fired at us."
Hospital doctors say 30 people were wounded in the shooting.
"Karzai strongly condemned the incident that took place," the presidential palace said in a statement on Sunday. Karzai has ordered an inquiry, but previous such investigations by NATO and the Afghan government have done nothing more than confirm witness accounts that those killed were civilians.
Despite hundreds of civilian deaths, no foreign soldier has ever been found guilty of any wrongdoing.
Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema, whose country has 1900 soldiers in the ISAF force, told reporters in Brussels that no officer would order troops to fire on civilians.
"It's worrying that there has been a growth in violence and a feeling of hostility toward NATO soldiers who are there to defend the population ... I absolutely agree with Karzai's decision to launch an independent inquiry."
There was no immediate official comment on the air raid deaths.
The Taleban have threatened an offensive in coming weeks after the bloodiest year since their 2001 overthrow. More than 4,000 people died in 2006, a quarter of them civilians. Dozens of those were killed by foreign troops, mainly in air raids.
- REUTERS
