KABUL, July 7: Scores of rebels and a dozen local police and soldiers were killed in an upsurge of fighting in Afghanistan in the past two days that also left several civilians dead, officials said on Saturday.

The deputy provincial police chief of the mountainous northeastern province of Kunar said about 25 civilians were killed in air strikes that hit a home in a remote area late on Thursday and then a funeral on Friday.

About 20 “enemies” were also killed, deputy police chief Abdul Sabur Alayar said. A resident said up to 35 civilians were killed.

The International Security Assistance Force commanded by Nato confirmed the air strikes but cast doubt on civilian deaths.

Instead the force said the strikes were believed to have killed a “significant number” of insurgents.

The strikes were called in against “positively identified enemy firing positions, including a hostile compound,” ISAF spokesman Major John Thomas said.

“We have no evidence of civilian casualties,” Thomas said. “We don't have any reason to think there was a funeral going on and that we struck a group of civilians.” The Afghan interior ministry said it would send a team to investigate.

“It is not clear yet what happened,” spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.

ISAF and its partner, the US-led coalition, are sensitive to civilian casualties after being rebuked by President Hamid Karzai and Western officials for killing too many people in their operations against the Taliban.

About 600 civilians have been killed in insurgency-linked violence this year, according to figures used by the United Nations, around half by Afghan and foreign troops.

Foreign attack aircraft were also despatched on Friday to battles in Farah province in the west, where estimates on Saturday of the rebel dead ranged from more than 30 to up to 60. Aircraft were also sent into a battle in southern Uruzgan, where the defence ministry said on Friday 33 rebels were killed.

New fighting raged on Saturday in the southern province of Helmand, adjacent to Kandahar where four Canadian soldiers were lightly wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded on a patrol convoy early in the morning, ISAF said.—AFP