GARDEZ, Aug 1: A peasant farmer was killed in southeastern Afghanistan and six people taken away by helicopter in a US military operation based on maliciously false intelligence, the local governor said on Thursday.

Paktia governor Raz Mohammad Dalili also criticized US forces for keeping him in the dark about Wednesday’s operation, warning that they could be inviting trouble.

“It was a mistake, a misunderstanding. There have been six persons taken away and one peasant killed,” Dalili said in the provincial capital Gardez.

“The operation was based on false information, on a fake report of the Afghan forces who have joined the coalition campaign, because of personal enmity.”

Dalili said that the six people were detained and then flown out of the village of Khouni Bakhtcha in the district of Zormat.

According to Moultan, a peasant farmer from the neighbouring village of Koula Gul and who like many Afghans has only one name, two helicopters landed near Khouni Bakhtcha 10pm on Wednesday.

“They fired a rocket against the house and they took away six people including three servants,” he said.

Moultan also said that the coalition forces had used gas to render the men unconscious during the operation.

The Afghan Islamic Press had earlier reported that a civilian was killed during heavy bombing in the Zormat area, 22kms south of Gardez.

Residents told the private news agency that the bombing could be heard from a long distance away.

Dalili said that he had had no contact with US soldiers stationed around Gardez about the incident, nor had he been given information about the six men who were detained.

“The people from the coalition should cooperate with us. As the governor, I should be informed of such operations,” he said.

“If such incidents keep on happening they (the Americans) will face big problems.”

Zormat is 10kms from the Shahi Kot Valley, where US-led coalition forces in March conducted their largest air and ground offensive of the 10-month military campaign in Afghanistan.

US-led coalition forces have been concentrating much of their search for remaining opposition fighters since then in Paktia and the neighbouring province of Khost.

Two Afghan allies were killed and five US soldiers injured on Saturday when their surveillance patrol was ambushed by a walled compound in Khost.

Dalili is an ally of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and was appointed governor last month after the previous incumbent, Taj Mohammad Wardak, was made interior minister.—AFP