'Four Afghan children killed' in US attack

A US helicopter bombed a village home in southern Afghanistan killing 11 people, four of them children, Afghan officials said today.

The attack occurred at around 4am on Sunday, a day after US forces hunting for Taliban insurgents had searched Saghatho village, where the home is located, said Abdul Rahman, chief of Char Chino district in Uruzgan province.

“They were simple villagers, they were not Taliban. I don’t know why the US bombed this home. We have informed our authorities,” he told a reporter by telephone in the southern city of Kandahar.

Major Steven Moon, a spokesman for the US military in Kabul, had no immediate comment.

The governor of Uruzgan, Jan Mohammed Khan, confirmed Rahman’s account that four men, four children and three women were killed in a US bombing.

He said US authorities had told him they spotted ammunition during their search of the village, which apparently raised suspicions.

During the search “the people were afraid, they started running”, Khan said.

“The Americans bombed this home,” he said.

Rahman said villagers were “very afraid and very angry.”

About 100 Afghan forces and between 20 and 30 US soldiers have arrested 10 suspects in an operation in the Mahmara and Saghatho areas of Char Chino district in the past two days, he said.

Three American soldiers were wounded in an attack on a US base in Uruzgan on Sunday.

One attacker was killed in the gunfight that broke out after about 15 insurgents targeted the base at Deh Rawood.

It was unclear whether the attackers were affiliated to the Taliban or other groups who have mounted a wave of attacks on soldiers, government targets and aid workers across the south and east.

At least 45 people have died in violence since the passing of the country’s first post-Taliban constitution on January 4.