KABUL — The U.S. military said Tuesday that it was investigating claims by Afghan officials that as many as 70 civilians were killed amid heavy fighting between the Taliban and coalition forces in a remote western district.
The Associated Press reported early today that President Hamid Karzai also has ordered a probe, and he said that Afghan and U.S.-led coalition officials headed to Farah province today to investigate the incident.
Claims and counterclaims about civilian casualties have long been among the most contentious issues between the Afghan government and its Western allies. The latest reports of civilian deaths and injuries emerged as Karzai was preparing to meet today in Washington with President Barack Obama.
Karzai, who is campaigning for re-election in August, has used increasingly sharp language over the past year to demand that U.S. and NATO forces use greater caution when confronting militants in populated areas. Western military officials say the insurgents often deliberately draw coalition firepower onto civilians or exaggerate casualties in order to inflame public anger against coalition troops.
The top U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, Army Col. Gregory Julian, confirmed that some injured civilians sought treatment late Monday in the Bala Baluk district in Farah province, a swath of desert along the Iranian border. Four were treated in local hospitals, and an additional five received medical care at a U.S. military base, American officials said.
Provincial officials, however, asserted that dozens of people were killed as they sought shelter during coalition airstrikes, and that villagers were slowly digging bodies out by hand.
Hangama Saded, a member of the provincial council, said from Farah that about 70 people, including women and children, were thought to have been killed as they huddled in a large mud-brick residence.
