The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates also expressed condolences over the deaths of Afghan civilians in a NATO air strike, saying it underlined the risks associated with any allied military action.

"As you've all been seeing, we're making steady, if perhaps a bit slower than anticipated, progress," Mullen told a news conference.

He said the operation in Marjah, which entered its ninth day on Monday, was a reminder that war "is bloody and uneven."

"It's messy and ugly and incredibly wasteful, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth the cost," Mullen said.

He said it was too early to draw any conclusions about the offensive in its second week and warned of more tough fighting ahead.

"We must steel ourselves, no matter how successful we are on any given day, for harder days yet to come."

Gates said even though the assault was "going slower than expected," there were no plans to alter the strategy adopted by the US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.

He and Mullen said a NATO air strike that killed up to 27 Afghan civilians was under investigation and provided no further details surrounding the bombing.

It was the third mistaken NATO air raid reported by Afghan officials in a week, despite McChrystal's orders to reduce the use of air power and artillery to avoid civilian casualties.

Mullen said the civilian deaths showed "how fragile and how tragic" any move "we make can ultimately be" on the battlefield.

General McChrystal had spoken to his commanders in the field by video link earlier to discuss the incident, the admiral said.

Describing the challenges faced by officers weighing the use of air power in combat, Mullen said "these are split-second decisions that commanders in combat on the ground have to make."

Gates said that McChrystal was "doing everything humanly possible to avoid civilian casualties" but the Taliban were mingling with civilians and using them as cover.

"I'm just saying that these kinds of things, in many respects, are inherent in a war," he said.

Gates also praised Pakistan over the recent capture of Afghan Taliban leaders but avoided revealing further details of the operations, reportedly carried out with help from the US Central Intelligence Agency.

Gates said it showed Islamabad had made "real progress" against Islamist militants and underlined "the importance of operations on both sides of the border."

"So I think that the recent events have been another positive indication of the Pakistanis' commitment to stabilizing this border area" with Afghanistan, he said.

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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