August 24, 2008	Sunday	Sha'aban 21, 1429

KABUL, Aug 23: Afghan villagers protested against troops on Saturday amid claims that 76 civilians, most of them children, were killed in air strikes on Taliban as the US military opened a probe into the incident.

President Hamid Karzai condemned civilian casualties from Friday’s clashes in the western province of Herat.

It was difficult to independently verify what had happened near the village of Azizabad, about 120km south of Herat city, with the area considered dangerous and a stronghold of Taliban and other militants.

Villagers gathered in an angry demonstration on Saturday, hurling stones at Afghan troops, the police chief for western Afghanistan, General Akram Yawar, said.

The troops were forced back into their compound, he said by telephone with the crowd’s chants against the government and the international troops heard in the background.

The US military, which has been accused of killing scores of other civilians in action against militants, including around 50 at a wedding party in July, said it would investigate the matter.

“Coalition forces make every effort to prevent the injury or loss of innocent lives. An investigation has been directed,” said a coalition statement from the main US military base at Bagram.

Its investigations generally take a long time. The results of the investigation into the strikes on the wedding party in the eastern province of Nangarhar have still not been made public.

In a statement condemning the event, Karzai accused of the troops of acting without coordinating with local authorities and “innocently martyring at least 70 people, most of them women and children.”

Karzai has regularly met international troops to urge them to increase efforts to avoid killing civilians. These efforts “have not yet brought a fruitful conclusion and our civilians are victims of anti-terrorist operations,” the statement said.—AFP