Hats and shoes littered a blood-stained field in a desolate Afghan village in the aftermath of an attack by a US warplane targeting a terror suspect that mistakenly killed nine children.

The US military launched an investigation today after it admitted nine children had died in an American air raid in eastern Afghanistan.

SUSPECTED Taliban fighters attacked a government checkpoint and ambushed another group of Afghan soldiers along the main road linking the south with the capital, killing at least eight soldiers, Afghan officials said yesterday.