NATO disputes killing Afghan civilians in airstrike visit to Afghanistan (Roundup)

Aug 5, 2009, 13:00 GMT

   Kandahar - NATO military forces on Wednesday rejected claims by Afghan villagers that an attack by an alliance helicopter killed four civilians in southern Afghanistan, saying those killed were insurgents.

   Meanwhile, six civilians including two tribal elders were killed in a roadside bomb explosion on Wednesday in an eastern region, a government spokesman said.

   Residents in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar said a NATO airstrike killed four civilians, including three children, and wounded two others.

   Dozens of residents from Arghandab district brought the four bodies to Kandahar city Wednesday morning to show them to provincial authorities. The tribal men said that the four brothers were killed Tuesday night when a NATO helicopter bombed their house.

   'They were sleeping inside their yard when the helicopter came and hit them,' Haji Manan Jan, one of the residents who was accompanying the group, told the German Press Agency dpa.

   'Every time they [foreign forces] bomb us and kill us and then simply say that it was a mistake,' Abdul Baqi, another resident of Arghandab said, adding, 'The government must do something about it, or they should let us to do something.'

   Two more civilians were wounded in the air raid and were taken to a Kandahar city hospital for treatment, he said.

   But a statement by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) issued in Kabul said that an alliance helicopter identified four insurgents carrying 'weapons and plastic jugs' and were possibly placing roadside bombs in Arghandab district.

   'ISAF engaged the insurgents with rockets and small arms fire from a helicopter, killing the insurgents,' the statement said, adding that no bombs were dropped by aircraft, but a large secondary explosion, possibly caused by explosives from the insurgents, was observed.

   A dpa reporter on the ground, who saw the bodies, said two of the dead bodies belonged to teenage boys.

   Civilian casualties during the international military operations have become a delicate issue in the country. President Hamid Karzai, who is seeking re-election on August 20, has repeatedly pleaded with foreign forces in the country to avoid civilian deaths.

   NATO's new secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, visited Afghanistan on Wednesday on just his third working day in his new job, the alliance said.

   Rasmussen, formerly Denmark's prime minister, was set to meet Karzai, the head of NATO's military mission in the country, General Stanley A McChrystal, and UN special envoy Kai Eide, NATO announced in a statement.

   He was also due to meet other candidates for the presidential election scheduled, and with some of NATO's 64,500 ground troops.

   Rasmussen formally became NATO secretary general on Saturday and began work on Monday.

   McChrystal previously ordered the allied forces to limit their use of airpower and make protection of Afghan civilians their top priority during anti-Taliban operations.

   The United Nations said in a report released late last month that civilian casualties in Afghanistan increased by 24 per cent during the first half of 2009 compared with the same period last year.

   Meanwhile, six civilians including two tribal elders were killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in the Pachir Agam district of the eastern province of Nangarhar on Wednesday, Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the provincial governor, told dpa.

   He said the elders along with their four companions were on their way to the district centre to settle a dispute over the construction of a road when the incident occurred. One other civilian was wounded.

   No group took responsibility for Wednesday's attack. Taliban militants rely heavily on the use of roadside bombs as part of their campaign against Afghan and the around 100,000 international forces in country.