KANDAHAR, March 20: At least six Afghan civilians were killed and seven wounded in a US airstrike in the central province of Uruzgan on Friday night, officials said.

Many of the casualties in the raid on a village in the province's Charcheno district were women and children, said a provincial government official.

Six people had been killed and seven wounded, said a police official. According to the Afghan Islamic Press, seven people had been killed - three women and four men.

US military spokesman Lt Col Bryan Hilferty said he was unaware of any civilian casualties.

He said US aircraft had pounded suspected Taliban positions in the province on Friday morning, not evening, in retaliation for the killing of two US soldiers the previous day in a firefight in which five militants were also killed.

He said the airstrikes in the Tarin Kot area killed three more suspected militants.

"I have no information that indicates coalition forces killed any civilians in Uruzgan," he said. "Certainly I have no reports that women or children were killed."

US-led forces have stepped up a hunt for Taliban and Al Qaeda militants, including Osama bin Laden, in southern and eastern Afghanistan since March 7.

The United States has been criticized by many Afghans and rights groups for killing and wounding civilians in its pursuit of Taliban, Al Qaeda and fighters allied to them.

The United Nations has called for details of investigations into such incidents to be made public.

In the worst US attack on civilians, in July 2002, 48 people were killed and 117 hurt when a gunship attacked a wedding party in Uruzgan.

In another incident on Friday night, three militants were killed when several dozen suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters attacked government forces near a US military base at Shkin, in Paktika province, close to the Pakistan border.-Reuters