NATO denies killing civilians in Afghan strike

Bodies of civilians killed in an airstrike are seen on the back of a truck in the city of Kandahar August 5, 2009.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - NATO and U.S. forces said they had carried out an air strike in southern Afghanistan, but denied allegations by villagers on Wednesday that the four dead were civilians killed in their sleep.

Angry residents brought the bodies to the provincial capital Kandahar, a heartland of insurgent activity, to show officials. The incident could stir instability two weeks before a presidential election.

Villagers identified the dead as civilians -- three boys and a man from one family killed late on Tuesday.

"They were civilians killed by the air strike while fast asleep," said Jan Mohammad, a village elder and one of the group who brought the bodies to Kandahar.

News of the strikes came on the day new NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen arrived in Afghanistan for talks with political and military leaders.

"I assure you we will do everything we can do to reduce the number of civilian casualties," Rasmussen told a joint news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul.

"We cannot accept the loss of innocent life," he said.

NATO-led forces earlier said they had identified four insurgents in Arghandab who "were carrying weapons and plastic jugs and were identified as possibly emplacing improvised explosive devices."

They said in a statement NATO-led forces engaged the insurgents and "a secondary explosion was observed at the point of impact indicating explosive material was in the insurgents' possession." An investigation is underway.

The air strike was part of spiraling violence before the August 20 presidential poll, which the Taliban, toppled by U.S. and Afghan-led forces in 2001, have vowed to disrupt.

GUNFIRE, ROCKETS

Earlier, U.S. military spokeswoman Captain Elizabeth Mathias said a NATO helicopter had struck four militants on motorcycles in a field far from a populated area.

"They appeared to be carrying things. The helicopter engaged them with gunfire and rockets," she said. "We understand there are reports of civilian casualties. We are investigating."

A Reuters correspondent who saw the bodies said two appeared to be teenage or pre-teen boys. Boys of that age sometimes accompany fighters in Afghanistan. The other two bodies were mutilated beyond recognition.

Afghan support for foreign troops has been eroded by civilian casualties, a great source of friction between Kabul and its Western backers.

The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has imposed greater limits on the use of air strikes. Western troops accuse militants of disguising fighters as civilians to anger public opinion.

Also on Wednesday, a roadside bomb killed five civilians in eastern Nangarhar province, the Interior Ministry said. Such bombs are the most lethal tactic used by militants, and frequently kill civilians as well as Western and Afghan troops.

The United Nations said last week 1,013 civilians had been killed between January and June, up from 818 in the same period last year. Insurgents were to blame for 59 percent of those deaths, the United Nations said.

U.S. and NATO forces are securing areas held by the Taliban in Helmand province, next to Kandahar. The operations are meant to secure the poll, part of Washington's effort to defeat militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

(Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin, Peter Graff and Jonathon Burch in KABUL; Editing by Paul Tait)