Death tolls differ in Afghan strike

Dozens of villagers were killed in a NATO military strike against suspected Taliban militants in the fighters’ former southern stronghold, Afghan officials said Thursday. But NATO said its initial reports suggested that 12 civilians had been killed and did not indicate whether they died because of NATO or Taliban actions.

The death toll given by the Afghan officials -- between 30 and 80, including women and children -- would be among the highest in any foreign military action in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001 and could turn locals against the counterinsurgency campaign.

Fearful villagers were packing up vehicles and donkeys to flee the Panjwayi region, in the southern province of Kandahar, where the troops led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been battling militants.

President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly decried civilian deaths caused by Western forces and only a week ago urged NATO to use “maximum caution” in its military operations after nine villagers were killed during another alliance operation in Kandahar.

Maj. Luke Knittig, a spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, said up to 70 militants might have been killed in three separate clashes in Panjwayi.

He said NATO targeted militants using artillery and airstrikes and regretted any civilian casualties.

Knittig said that fighters attacked NATO forces, and that return fire was precisely aimed at those militants.

A provincial council member, Bismallah Afghanmal, said fighters fled into civilian homes, which were then attacked by NATO forces.

Villagers and local government officials denounced the alliance and blamed the government for a lack of security.

“Everyone is very angry at the government and the coalition. There was no Taliban,” villager Abdul Aye said through tears at a mass funeral in Kandahar city. He said 22 members of his extended family were killed.

The deaths in Panjwayi this week come only a month after NATO launched a major offensive there, during which more than 500 militants were killed, according to the alliance. The top NATO commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Richards, has called the operation a “significant success.”

“Fourteen members of my family were killed,” said Fazel Mohammed, 52, a villager in Lay Kundi, about 20 miles southwest of Kandahar, where several mud homes were destroyed.

Death tolls in remote military actions in Afghanistan are difficult to accurately pin down, and estimates often vary widely.