Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he had called Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai on Monday morning after a NATO air strike killed 27 civilians, including women and a child, in an attack the Afghan government called "unjustifiable."

"There will be bad days," Rasmussen said. "I just spoke to President Karzai and expressed my deep regrets and condolences for the latest incidents where Afghan civilians have lost their lives."

Rasmussen, who spoke at Washington's Georgetown University, said NATO troops had worked hard to minimize the number of Afghan civilians killed in air strikes after either being mistakenly targeted or caught up in attacks.

"I don't think that you can be too careful. Every life lost is one life too much," he said.

"It's not just theory. During the recent years our troops in Afghanistan have succeeded in reducing the number of civilian casualties significantly and we have to continue to minimize the number of civilian casualties."

Reducing the number of Afghan civilians killed by foreign troops has been a key part of the new strategy advanced by the top US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.

He issued an apology Monday for the incident in Daykundi province, in which a civilian convoy was reportedly mistaken for a Taliban group -- the third mistaken NATO air strike reported by Afghan officials in a week.

The deaths come as NATO faced a new challenge Monday with news that the Dutch government had collapsed amid disputes about whether it should extend its troop deployment in Afghanistan.

Rasmussen asked the Netherlands this month to take on a new training role and remain in Afghanistan until August 2011, a year later than originally planned.

General Stephane Abrial, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation said the potential August withdrawal was simply part of the nature of the alliance.

"It's a sovereign nation's decision. Each member of the alliance, according to the terms of the treaty, is entitled to choose how he contributes to global efforts," he said in Washington.

The loss of Dutch troops would be a blow to international forces as they ramp up efforts to claw back victory through a new strategy combining troop increases, a focus on development, and major operations like that underway in Afghanistan's south.

Rasmussen emphasized that NATO troops were fully committed to the fight regardless of the Dutch departure, noting that soldiers from 44 nations are currently deployed in Afghanistan under NATO command.

They are "sharing the risks, the costs and the burdens with the US," he said.

"The non-US members make up 40 percent of the total number of forces. They also take 40 percent of the casualties. That is an enormous demonstration of solidarity in fighting terrorism together."

The alliance head, formerly Denmark's prime minister, said he believed the new strategy was making progress.

"There is new momentum," he said. "I am confident that this year we will be able to start transferring security responsibilities to the Afghans themselves -- district by district, province by province."

The Afghan mission has been a difficult test for NATO, which entered the conflict after invoking the collective defense article of its charter for the first time ever following the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.

Coordinating command structures with American forces and navigating the rules of engagement binding different national troops has at times provoked friction, but Rasmussen said the alliance had proved capable and credible.

"We are no ad-hoc coalition of the willing and this gives NATO a degree of competence, credibility and legitimacy that encourages even non-NATO countries to put their forces under NATO command," he said.

The counterinsurgency focus in Afghanistan has also provided the alliance with new lessons, he added.

"The most important lesson learned is that there is no military solution solely to a conflict like the one we have seen in Afghanistan and I think the same will apply to future conflicts."

earlier related report
NATO air strike, Afghan suicide attack kill 41
Kabul (AFP) Feb 23, 2010 - A NATO air strike killed up to 27 Afghan civilians, including women and a child, sparking fresh anger from Kabul against US-led forces pressing a major offensive to defeat the Taliban.

In a further blow to efforts to quell the eight-year insurgency, a suicide bomber killed an influential Afghan leader and 13 other people in a relatively peaceful eastern province on the Pakistan border Monday, police said.

Top US commander Stanley McChrystal, who has made winning Afghan hearts and minds the focus of plans to end the increasingly costly war, was forced into another apology over civilian deaths after the third incident in a week.

"We are extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives," he said.

"I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people, and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission," McChrystal added in a statement.

A statement from Afghan President Hamid Karzai said McChrystal had visited him at his palace on Sunday to personally apologise for deaths.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen telephoned Karzai from Washington to express his sorrow.

"I strongly regret when we see civilian casualties, and our soldiers do whatever they can to avoid civilian casualties," Rasmussen said.

McChrystal and his superior, General David Petraeus, mapped out an offensive lasting 12-18 months that would strike beyond the current focus of operations in the southern province of Helmand.

But the third mistaken NATO air strike reported by Afghan officials in a week risked undermining the campaign's strategic goals.

The government said four women and a child were among the civilians killed in Gujran district of Daykundi province on Sunday when NATO forces mistook their convoy for Taliban militants.

A statement from the council of ministers, chaired by Karzai, condemned the incident as "unjustifiable", saying that 27 people were killed and 12 wounded.

The air raid came days after a NATO rocket attack on a house killed at least nine Afghan civilians -- for which McChrystal also apologised.

Civilian casualties are a sensitive issue in Afghanistan, where Karzai and his Western backers are trying to win a war of perceptions.

Last Thursday, a NATO bombing raid in the northern province of Kunduz killed seven Afghan policemen, according to hospital and government officials.

On February 15, NATO acknowledged that five civilians were killed accidentally and two others wounded in an air strike in southern Afghanistan.

Karzai used Saturday's opening session of parliament to repeat his call for civilians to be protected as 15,000 Afghan, US and NATO troops press Operation Mushtarak (Together) in Helmand into a second week.

The assault on the Marjah and Nad Ali areas in southern Afghanistan's poppy growing region is the first key test of a US surge that will boost the total number of foreign troops in Afghanistan to 150,000 by August.

But the enormity of the challenge in reversing the Taliban insurgency was underlined Monday when a suicide bomber strapped with explosives walked up to a tribal gathering in the eastern province Nangarhar.

Police spokesman Colonel Abdul Ghafour told AFP the dead included influential tribal leader Mohammad Zaman Ghamsharik, a former jihadi commander during the fight to evict Soviet troops in the 1980s.

Ghamsharik led a group of Afghan militias during the 2001 US-led campaign against the Taliban, including at Tora Bora, a complex of caves near Nangahar's border with Pakistan, from where Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden escaped.

NATO on Monday described resistance from Taliban fighters as "determined" in Marjah, on the ninth day of the offensive, but spoke of "cautious optimism" in nearby Nad Ali, "as early signs indicate a return to normality".

The Red Cross said it had closed a first aid post due to fighting and heavily mined roads in the Marjah area.

"Now, since movement in Marjah is difficult due to fighting and IEDs, the ICRC first-aid personnel have been treating patients in their homes, as those in need of care are often unable to move about or are afraid to do so," the organisation said in a statement.

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