KABUL, Jan 3: Nato said on Wednesday that it killed too many Afghan civilians during fighting last year against resurgent Taliban militants.

The acknowledgment came one day after President Hamid Karzai’s latest plea for foreign forces to use maximum caution in their operations following deaths of two civilians, reportedly involving Nato troops.

“The single thing that we have done wrong and we are striving extremely hard to improve on (in 2007) is killing innocent civilians,” Brig Richard E. Nugee, the chief spokesman for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force, told a news conference.

Mr Nugee said the alliance had been reviewing for several weeks measures to bring down the number of civilian casualties.

Nato forces were accused of killing dozens of civilians last year in airstrikes, during battles and due to gunfire from military convoys that felt threatened, prompting Mr Karzai to issue several pleas for international forces to take care.

Mr Nugee said Nato forces had killed far fewer civilians than the Taliban, which launched a record number of roadside and suicide bombs last year.

“There is absolutely no comparison to be made,” he said.

“The Taliban are killing significant numbers of their own people and showing no remorse at all.”

Militants launched a record 117 suicide attacks in 2006, about a six-fold increase over 2005, killing 206 Afghan civilians, 54 Afghan security personnel and 18 soldiers from Nato’s ISAF.

Mr Karzai, in a statement issued on Tuesday, expressed “deep regret” over the deaths of two civilians in Nangarhar province a few days earlier.

The interior ministry had said foreign troops were involved, although Nato spokesman Maj Dominic Whyte said no Nato or US-led coalition soldiers were involved.

“Once again, I urge Afghan and international forces to ensure greater coordination between themselves and to practise maximum caution during their anti-terrorist operations so that civilians are not harmed,” Mr Karzai said.

The Afghan president last month broke down in tears during a public speech in which he recounted stories of children maimed by bombings.

“We can not prevent the terrorists from coming from Pakistan, and we can not prevent the coalition from bombing the terrorists, and our children are dying because of this,” he said.

Airstrikes in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province in October reportedly killed dozens of civilians, including 20 members of one family, according to Afghan authorities.

A joint Afghan-Nato investigation into that incident has never been released.

The New York Times has reported previously that the investigation found that 31 civilians were killed.

Mr Nugee said that commanders have looked at the report “in very fine detail.”

“While it has not come out publicly, it has made quite an impact on this headquarters,” he said.

In the southern province of Helmand, meanwhile, Nato and Afghan troops killed 10 suspected Taliban fighters during a battle on Tuesday, said Ghulam Nabi Mullahkhail, the provincial police chief.

Nato and Afghan forces suffered no casualties, he said.

In Oruzgan province on Tuesday, Afghan and US-led coalition special operations forces killed three militants who had been observed planting a roadside bomb, ISAF said.—AP