U.S. regrets deaths of 7 Afghan youngsters

The U.S. military expressed regret Monday over the deaths of seven Afghan children in an airstrike a day earlier but blamed Islamic insurgents for preventing the youngsters from leaving the compound that was hit.

American officials said U.S.-led coalition forces were unaware of the presence of noncombatants inside the compound in Paktika province, which also contained a mosque and a madrasa, or religious school.

Seven boys under the age of 16, including at least one as young as 10, were killed in Sunday’s airstrike, Afghan officials said. Paktika Gov. Akhram Akhpelwak told the Associated Press that in a departure from usual practice, local Afghan officials were not given advance notice of Western troops’ plans to hit the compound.

Accidental civilian deaths at the hands of coalition troops have become a highly emotional issue in Afghanistan. The country’s pro-Western president, Hamid Karzai, has appealed repeatedly for greater caution in military operations in civilian areas, but public anger at his government is growing as well.

The compound, in the Zargun Shah district of Paktika province, in Afghanistan’s southeast, was believed to have been occupied by militants linked to Al Qaeda, the military said in a statement. It said several militants were killed in addition to the young boys.

U.S. Army Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman, said surviving children told authorities they were forcibly kept inside the compound by insurgents.

“The people in the area ... understand that the incident was the result of hoodlums’ activity in the area,” Belcher said.

A full day of surveillance before the airstrike yielded no sign of the boys’ presence, he said.

U.S. military officials traveled to the province to meet with local authorities and express regret over the deaths. Afghan human rights officials, who have been strongly critical of several other military operations this year that resulted in multiple civilian deaths, said they were investigating the incident.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, Western forces reported prolonged fighting with insurgents in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, for months the scene of such clashes. A Dutch soldier was killed, together with dozens of Taliban fighters, the coalition said.

The fighting occurred in remote areas, and the casualty figures could not be independently confirmed.

In Kabul, police reported the detention of an unidentified suspect in connection with the worst attack in months in the capital -- a massive suicide bombing Sunday that incinerated a bus carrying police trainees. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed nearly three dozen people.

The blast heightened fears that militants are gaining the ability to carry out large-scale attacks even in heavily fortified areas of the capital. Past suicide attacks in Kabul have caused far fewer casualties.

Suicide bombings are increasingly becoming a favored tactic of the insurgents, who in general are reluctant to engage in head-to-head battle against vastly better armed troops.

king@latimes.com

Special correspondent Faiez reported from Kabul and Times staff writer King from Istanbul, Turkey.