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UN investigation says air strikes killed 60 children

Sixty children were killed in air strikes by US-led coalition warplanes in western Afghanistan last week, a UN investigation has found. UN investigators said they had discovered “convincing evidence” that a total of 90 Afghan civilians died in the incident.

The toll, potentially the worst since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, could wreck relations between the Afghan government and NATO forces, which were already under severe strain over civilian casualties and strategy in the counter-insurgency against the Taliban.

The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered that any military operation by foreign forces on its territory be subject to a new set of rules enforceable under international law.

Kai Eide, the UN special envoy to Afghanistan who ordered the investigation, said the incident could undermine the faith of Afghans in international efforts to stabilize the country.

Military sources said the air strikes last Thursday on the Shindand district of Herat Province were carried out not by the NATO force attempting to bolster Karzai’s government, but as part of a parallel US mission targeting al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

US officials initially said that the air strikes were aimed at a Taliban stronghold and had killed 30 jihadis.

In his report, Eide said investigators from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan found that up to eight houses in the village of Nawabad were destroyed in the raids and many others damaged.

Meanwhile, an air strike killed 30 Taliban in southeastern Afghanistan close to the border with Pakistan and Afghan police killed 18 more militants in the south of the country, officials said yesterday.

International troops called in the air strike in which 30 Taliban fighters were killed after the militants attacked a convoy of foreign troops and Afghan forces in Paktika Province on Tuesday, the deputy provincial governor said.

Also on Tuesday, 18 Taliban were killed in a clash with police in southern Helmand Province the provincial police chief said.

A German soldier was killed and three injured in an attack by militant forces in northern Afghanistan, German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said yesterday.

The soldiers were hit by an explosion near the city of Kunduz. It was initially unclear exactly what kind of device caused the blast, German officials said.

Japan pledged yesterday to continue with its assistance in Afghanistan after authorities said a Japanese aid worker had been killed.

Afghan authorities said they found the bullet-riddled body of Kazuya Ito, 31, an agriculture specialist for a Japanese non-governmental group who was kidnapped the day before.
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