Associated Press

Kabul, January 31

An American airstrike in an Afghan village earlier this month killed 10 civilians, president Hamid Karzai said today. The US military had said it killed five militants during a January 17 raid against suspected Taliban leaders in southern Uruzgan province and insisted it fired only on armed men.

But Karzai said an Interior Ministry investigation into the attack, some 400-km southwest of Kabul, unfortunately killed 10 civilians. At the time of the raid, local officials had maintained that four men, four children and three women were killed.

His spokesman, Jawed Ludin, said the investigation had focused only on whether civilians had died, and had no information on whether militants also were killed.

Military officials said an AC-130 gunship killed five men leaving a compound in the Char Chino Valley, where it suspected a gathering of midlevel Taliban leaders was going on. US officials said the airstrike was called when armed men moved through the darkness toward special forces and Afghan militia who had surrounded the compound. Karzai said he had invited relatives of the Uruzgan victims to Kabul to discuss how the government could help them, but made no comment on the bungled operation.