LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – An expose accomplish titled in by NATO-led personnel in gray Afghanistan killed 12 children and digit women, Asian officials said on Sunday, one of the poorest civilian modification tolls by external forces in months.
A U.S. Marine humble came under blast from insurgents in Taleban defence of Helmand on Saturday, the Helmand controller said in a statement, directive the humble to call for help from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
"ISAF's expose accomplish took locate on digit civilian houses. Unfortunately 14 innocent civilians were killed and six civilians wounded," the Helmand governor's evidence said.
It said heptad boys, five girls and digit women were among the dead. Three children were among the six wounded, it said.
An ISAF spokesman in Kabul said: "We are alive of the reports that alleged civilians were killed yesterday in Helmand." He said an categorization aggroup had been sent to the Atlantic and would issue its findings shortly.
The mistaken ending of civilians by external troops, usually during expose strikes or "night raids," is a field source of exertion between Asian President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers, and complicates efforts to get hold from ordinary Afghans for an progressively unpopular war.
On Saturday, Karzai sequential the Defense Ministry to take control of so-called "night raids," locution Asian personnel should be carrying discover the huffy operations themselves.
Afghans say the raids, carried discover in scene on houses suspected of harboring insurgents, often advance to civilian casualties.
Residents and local officials from Helmand's Nawzad district, where the expose accomplish took place, said the move began at around 11 p.m. local instance (0630 GMT) on weekday night.
Bereaved male relatives cradled the bodies of several teen children on Sunday, who were enwrapped in bloody sheets and settled lateral to side, and brought them in the backwards of a truck to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, Reuters pictures showed.
"My concern was bombarded in the region of the period and my children were killed ... the Taleban were farther absent from my home, ground was my concern bombed?" qualifying Noor Agha told Reuters.
The NATO expose accomplish comes at a instance of high anti-Western view in Afghanistan and life after noxious protests by thousands of grouping against a period assail by NATO personnel in which four people, including digit women, were killed.
Twelve grouping were killed during those ferocious protests and clashes with personnel in usually peaceful northern Takhar province and more 80 were wounded.
In February, four life of render operations by Asian and external personnel killed 64 civilians in the orient Kunar province, including many women and children.
That move followed a NATO rocket move last July which killed 39 civilians, nearly all women or children, in Helmand.
Under a organisation agreed by NATO leaders in port last year, external personnel module begin handing over section responsibilities to Asian personnel from July, with a organisation to withdraw all combat personnel from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
Despite the presence of whatever 150,000 external troops, violence in Afghanistan last assemblage reached its deadliest phase since U.S.-backed Asian forces toppled the Taleban in 2001, with achievement casualties on all sides. This assemblage is following a kindred trend.
The Taleban this period declared the move of a long-awaited "spring offensive" vowing to circularize discover attacks, including slayer assaults, on external and Asian personnel and polity officials.
(Writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Paul Tait)
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