Coalition airstrike kills 7 children, investigation started (Roundup)

Jun 18, 2007, 16:07 GMT

Kabul - The US-led coalition said Monday that an airstrike in eastern Afghanistan killed seven children and that an investigation was underway in what it said was a case of al-Qaeda using 'innocent civilians to shield themselves.'

The strike came Sunday night in Paktika province after the coalition received intelligence of reports of al-Qaeda fighters having set themselves up in a complex which included a mosque and a religious school.

US spokesman, Army Major Chris Belcher, said the incident was very regrettable and that an investigation was underway, but he said it was further proof that the al-Qaeda terrorists were using a mosque and civilians as protection.

'This is another example of al-Qaeda using the protective status of a mosque as well as innocent civilians to shield themselves,' he charged.

He said that the coalition had received reliable information that al-Qaeda fighters had been in the complex all day.

But there had been no indications that civilians were present when the airstrike was ordered on it, the spokesman said.

After the attack, local residents confirmed that several al-Qaeda fighters were killed and two others captured.

The mosque received minor damage in the strike, the coalition said.

In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Snow said Taliban fighters were believed to have used civilians as human shields in the past but that the military was still investigating the incident.

'Obviously, anytime innocents are killed it is a tragedy,' Snow said. 'At this point you also still have to let people do a fuller investigation about what went on.'

In further developments, the US military said that there had been heavy fighting overnight in the southern Helmand province after joint Afghan-US units were attacked on Sunday.

The military said 'several dozen enemy combatants' had been killed in the fighting in which air cover was brought in to support the troops on the ground. Two coalition troops were wounded.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul also reported that one ISAF soldier and two Afghan policemen had been killed and three further coalition soldiers wounded in the central province of Oruzgan.

At the same time, a great number of radical-Islamic fighters had been killed in the fighting which had been going on in the region for three days. ISAF did not divulge the identity of the ISAF casualties, but many Dutch soldiers are stationed in the region.

Civilian deaths have been a great matter of concern for the US- backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

At least a quarter of the 4,000 people killed in fighting in 2006 were civilians, according to reports by human-rights groups.

Last week, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the conflict has only worsened this year and civilian casualties were growing.

Defence ministers of NATO, to which the US belongs and which leads the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, vowed Friday to take additional efforts to avoid civilian casualties in Afghanistan. But NATO warned that innocent lives would inevitably be lost in the war between international forces and militants there.

Both NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Afghan Defence Minister Abdel Rahim Wardak said at the Brussels meeting that international and Afghan forces were doing their best to prevent civilian deaths.

But they said insurgents were deliberately targeting civilians and using them as shields and hostages.