US air attack kills nine children in Afghanistan

CHILDREN’S hats and shoes littered a bloody field cratered by gunfire yesterday after a US airstrike, aimed at a wanted Taliban commander, mistakenly killed nine children in an Afghan mountain village.

The American warplane was targeting Mullah Wazir, once a local commander for the hard-line Islamic militia. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and a US military official said Wazir was killed in the attack, but residents and local officials said Wazir escaped or was not in the village at all.

The residents reported at least one adult man, possibly a Wazir relative, was killed along with the children.

The strike was the latest US air attack to kill Afghan civilians as US-led forces hunt for remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida who have stepped up violence in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

The United Nation's envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, said he was "profoundly distressed" by the attack in the village of Hutala. The airstrike, "which follows similar incidents, adds to a sense of insecurity and fear in the country," Brahimi said.

The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai said it fully supported fighting terrorism but urged the US-led coalition to "be very careful not to repeat such tragedies".

Meanwhile, two Turkish engineers and an Afghan were kidnapped outside Kabul, officials said yesterday. The report follows the abduction of two Indian engineers by Taliban militants, who are increasingly targeting foreign workers and aid groups helping in the country's reconstruction.

In Hutala, a field was pockmarked by dozens of small craters from the American A-160 aircraft's guns. There were pools of blood and articles of children's clothing were strewn on the ground.

"They were just playing ball, and then the shots came down," said Hamidullah, a distraught villager who said his eight-year-old son, Habibullah, was among those killed.

The village lies about 100 miles southwest of Kabul, along the main road between the capital and the main southern city Kandahar, in Ghazni province.

Khalilzad and US Army Major Christopher E West said US troops went to Hutala and identified Wazir among the dead. They also discovered the bodies of the nine children.

"At the time we initiated the attack, we did not know there were children nearby," Mr West said.