US says raid killing Afghan children was legitimate

4.00pm

KABUL - American forces have been absolved of all blame following an internal investigation into the killing of nine Afghan children in a United States airstrike last December, but their rules of engagement have since been changed.

"The investigating officer said we used appropriate rules of engagement and did follow the law of conflict," US spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Bryan Hilferty told a news briefing in Kabul.

But he declined to give details of the report, saying the investigation into the December 6 incident in Ghazni province remained "top secret" despite UN calls for it to be made public.

"However, we did slightly change our rules of engagement after that investigation," he said.

Hilferty said the investigation remained classified "because of the intelligence involved and the target involved". He declined to say how the engagement rules had been altered, saying these too were secret.

The US military used A-10 "tankbuster" planes in the attack on the compound of a suspected militant in Ghazni province. They killed nine children, aged between nine and 12, and a young man.

The day before in neighbouring Gardez province, six children and two adults were found dead under a collapsed wall after a US attack on a compound used by another militant to store weapons. Both attacks failed to kill their intended targets.

Hilferty did not refer to the Gardez incident.

He said the law of land warfare was agreed by most nations.

"It lays out certain rules and procedures to be followed, such as the law of proportionality, which is if you fire at me from that house across the street with a rifle, I should not reply with tens of bombs and destroy the entire block.

"You can follow all of the laws of land warfare and still unfortunately have tragic incidents," he added.

After the Ghazni attack, New York-based Human Rights Watch questioned why high-speed machineguns firing explosive rounds had been used to target an individual, while the United Nations called for the investigation to be made public.

The United States has been criticised by many Afghans and rights groups for inflicting civilian casualties in its war in pursuit of Taleban, al Qaeda and allied fighters launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

On Tuesday, a civilian was wounded in crossfire after a US base was attacked in the eastern province of Kunar, Hilferty said. He said it was unclear if the civilian was hit by US fire or by militants who attacked a base northwest of Asadabad.

Hilferty said US troops returned fire with rifles and machineguns and called in an A-10 to provide support. He said some of more than one dozen attackers were thought to have been wounded as bloody trails were found leading into the hills.

He called it "one of the larger" attacks in recent months.

A group of 200 tribal chiefs and elders has been in Kabul for the past 10 days complaining about allegedly heavy-handed US tactics in Barmal district of Paktika province, an area near the Pakistani border where the hunt for militants, including al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, has been most intense.

Their leader Sher Khan accused US forces of detaining and beating innocent people and barging into houses without warning, adding that they were trying to see President Hamid Karzai.

"We want US forces to co-ordinate with us before launching operations, otherwise the misunderstandings and mistrust will grow," he told Reuters.

Another tribal chief, Haji Arsala, said the Americans behaved worse than the Russians, Afghanistan's occupiers in the 1980s.

"They have not done a single bit of reconstruction work in our district. All they've done is give chewing-gum to the kids."

Hilferty said US forces tried to be sensitive to local customs but search operations were necessary to provide security.

- REUTERS