Sunday's strikes in the eastern province of Nangarhar were in the remote Deh Bala district in mountains on the border with Pakistan where extremist rebels are said to have hideouts.

It was the second time in days the force faced charges of high civilian casualties in strikes on militants, with Afghan officials saying more than a dozen died in Nuristan province Friday, a claim also rejected by the coalition.

Deh Bala district chief Hamaisha Gul told AFP on Sunday that 22 civilians were killed when the raid hit a wedding party. Witnesses also said there were many dead and wounded but more senior Afghan officials would not comment.

On Monday the spokesman for the Nangarhar government confirmed the incident and issued a higher death toll.

"In this incident, 27 civilians were killed including the bride and 10 other civilians are wounded," spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told AFP.

Gul, who also gave a new toll of 27, said more than a dozen children, up to 10 women and three men were killed.

The toll could not independently verified. But the US-led coalition again rejected the allegations although it was investigating the claims.

"We have no information beyond what we have been saying, that they were combatants," Captain Christian Patterson told AFP.

"The investigation is going on and we are waiting to hear the facts that come out of the investigations," he said.

The coalition said Sunday there was no wedding party in the area of its strikes which it said killed "several militants".

Provincial legislators meanwhile said Monday they had stopped work for three days in protest and demanded a proper investigation.

The seven-year internationally supported campaign to fight a bloody Taliban-led insurgency has seen several incidents in which civilians were killed, as well as claims of civilian casualties that have proven untrue.

The coalition and a separate NATO-led force are helping the Afghan government fight a bloody campaign by Islamic extremists largely from the Taliban who were in government between 1996 and 2001.

President Hamid Karzai has already ordered an investigation into Friday's attack in the Nuristan province, also on the border with Pakistan.

Nuristan deputy governor Abdul Halim reiterated Monday that the strikes had killed 15 civilians, including two doctors and two midwives.

"Among the dead is also a man and his family who provided land for a US base in the area," he said.

The coalition has said those who were killed were militants who had been spotted attacking a NATO-led base in the area.

The UN representative to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said the reported new civilian casualties were of "grave concern" and he supported calls for investigations to clarify what had happened.

"It is really important, when you have different versions of events, that we manage to establish the facts as precisely as possible and that we are also able to make public and make known to the public what the facts are," Eide told reporters.

The UN was also investigating, he said. Its investigation into a 2002 US bombing raid on a wedding party in the southern province of Uruzgan found that 48 people were killed.

earlier related report
Afghan parliament condemns US air strikes
The Afghan parliament condemned Monday civilian casualties in US-led air strikes after Afghan officials said more than 40 people were killed in two recent raids, including one that struck a wedding.

The UN representative to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, expressed "grave concern" about the allegations -- rejected by the coalition -- and called for investigations to clarify what happened.

Various parliamentary committees held a special meeting on the strikes, which happened on Friday and Sunday in remote and mountains areas on the eastern border with Pakistan.

"The Afghan people cannot tolerate American forces' bombing of civilians any more," deputy speaker of the Lower House, Mirwais Yasini, told reporters after Monday's meeting.

"We are are stuck between a rock and a hard place, between Taliban attacks and foreign forces air strikes," he said.

Civilians are regularly caught up in violence linked to an extremist insurgency launched after the hardline Islamic Taliban regime was removed from power in late 2001 in a US-led invasion.

The United Nations said last month that nearly 700 Afghan civilians had lost their lives in such violence this year, nearly two-thirds in militant attacks and about 255 in military operations.

Parliament could be forced to make "serious decisions" about the 70,000 NATO and US troops helping Afghanistan to fight the militant uprising, said Yasini, without giving details.

Civilian casualties could also spur ordinary people into violent protest, he said.

"We are sure if the bombing of civilians does not stop, it will provoke violence and the foreign forces will be responsible."

Nangarhar province government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told AFP that 27 civilians -- most of them women and children -- were killed in air strikes that hit a wedding party Sunday. The dead included the bride, he said.

But the US-led coalition rejected the allegations but said it was investigating. "We have no information beyond what we have been saying, that they were combatants," Captain Christian Patterson told AFP.

Nuristan deputy governor Abdul Halim said 15 civilians, including two doctors and two midwives, were killed in attacks in his province on Friday.

The coalition has said the strikes hit two vehicles of militants who had been seen attacking a NATO base.

In neither case could the tolls be independently verified.

The UN's Eide said he had spoken to President Hamid Karzai and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force about the matter. The UN was also investigating, he told reporters.

"It is really important, when you have different versions of events, that we manage to establish the facts as precisely as possible," Eide said.

"But I must emphasise these kinds of incidents and reports are of very

grave concern."

Civilian casualties by international forces is a sensitive issue in Afghanistan as the foreign troops seek the backing of locals to defeat insurgents in a battle observers say cannot be won through military means alone.

Karzai has made repeated calls on his military allies to better coordinate their action with local forces while rights groups have called for less reliance on air power to fight militants.

The international forces say they take the utmost care to avoid civilians, going through thorough identification procedures before firing at targets.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Share This Article With Planet Earth

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Related Links
News From Across The Stans

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News