Afghan officials: U.S. missiles killed 27 civilians

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan officials said fighter aircraft battling militants accidentally killed up to 27 Afghans walking to a wedding ceremony in eastern Afghanistan early Sunday, the second military attack in three days with reports of civilian deaths.

The U.S. military blamed the claims on militant propaganda and said its missiles only struck insurgents.

President Hamid Karzai had already ordered an investigation into allegations that missiles from U.S. helicopters struck civilians on Friday in eastern Afghanistan, though the Defense Ministry said Sunday that attack on the Nuristan-Kunar border killed or wounded 20 militants.

U.S. Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, told The Associated Press on Sunday that the two incidents were being investigated. He noted that militants hide among and intimidate civilians.

U.S. spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry said the military has repeatedly seen militants falsely claim civilian were killed.

"Whenever we do an airstrike the first thing they're going to cry is 'Airstrike killed civilians' when the missile actually struck militant extremists we were targeting in the first place," Perry said. "At this time we don't believe we've harmed anyone except for the combatants."

In a statement, Karzai cited allegations by Tamim Nuristani, the governor of Nuristan province, that 15 civilians were killed and seven wounded in the Friday attack. During a Cabinet meeting on Sunday, top Afghan officials prayed for any innocent lives lost, a presidential palace statement said.

"The killing and wounding of our countrymen as the result of airstrikes is news that always makes us sad," Karzai said.

In the second incident early Sunday, the chief government official in the Deh Bala district of Nangarhar province said villagers reported that as many as 27 people walking in a group toward a wedding were killed in a bombing. Up to 11 other people were wounded, Haji Amishah Gul said.

Nuristan provincial police chief spokesman Ghafor Khan said that fighter aircraft attacked a group of militants near the village of Kacu, but that one of the missiles went off course and hit the wedding party. Khan said many militants were killed in the attack as well.

Both officials relied on reports called in by telephone from villagers. The area was too remote for officials or reporters to reach.

Gul said the group killed included men, women and children. Six of those wounded were taken to the provincial hospital in Jalalabad. Lal Wazir, an Afghan who helped bring the wounded to the hospital, said the airstrike occurred at 6:30 a.m.

"The wedding participants were on their way to the groom's house," Wazir said outside the hospital, his tunic covered in blood after carrying some of those wounded.

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