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Hamid Karzai calls for investigation into civilian deaths

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for an investigation into reports that 45 innocent Afghans were killed in a NATO-led air assault in southern Afghanistan, the latest in a series of attacks which an incensed public is calling "civilian massacres."

Fighting began on Friday, when Taliban fighters ambushed a joint US-Afghan military convoy, which was attempting to clear the Helmand river of Taliban positions.

The international forces, including British troops who on Saturday also suffered a fatality nearby, then called in air strikes on houses in the village of Hyderabad, in Helmand's Gereshk district where they said insurgents were sheltering.

Despite ongoing clashes, an Afghan team of investigators was able to establish that 62 Taliban were also killed during the attack, confirmed Dur Ali Shah, the mayor of Gereshk, and Mohammad Hussein Andewal, the provincial police chief.

Hyderabad resident Mohammad Khan told the press that the air strikes killed seven members of his family, including his brother and five of his brother's children. A "lot of dead bodies" were buried on Saturday, he said by telephone.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) admitted some innocent villagers had died but denied the toll reported by the two Afghan officials.

"We had evidence of less than one dozen apparent civilians who were killed in that engagement," said Major John Thomas, spokesman for ISAF, the NATO-led force tasked with bringing stability to Afghanistan.

The ISAF has repeatedly lamented the Taliban's tactic of dispersing among the Afghan population, blaming them for innocent loss of life.

"The civilian dead that we surveyed were in a trench line, in an enemy position, where the Taliban were using heavy machine guns, mortars, small arms and rocket-propelled grenades," he said.

While Karzai has condemned the Taliban for using human shields, he has also said the foreign soldiers consider Afghan lives "cheap."

Thomas said the ISAF would "welcome President Karzai's investigation and cooperate in any way possible."

The spokesman said that Friday's decision to call for air support was taken under difficult circumstances.

"Sometimes in a self defense situation we do not have perfect information in returning fire, this was the case in Hyderabad," he said.

"We sometimes find later there were civilians hidden from our view and our knowledge, but it doesn't absolve ISAF troops from our responsibility not to kill civilians," he added.

But with more than 230 civilians killed this year, many incidents including women and children, convincing the Afghan population of their good intentions is becoming increasingly difficult.
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