NATO air strike kills 25 Afghan civilians

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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, June 22 (AFP): A NATO air strike in southern Afghanistan early Friday killed 25 civilians, including nine women and three young children, a provincial police chief said.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed its troops called in air support after being attacked in Helmand province, and said it was investigating reports of a "small number" of civilian casualties.
Provincial police chief Colonel Mohammad Hassan told AFP that the bombing came after Taliban fighters attacked an ISAF convoy from among houses and gardens in a village.
About 20 Taliban were also reported killed in the strike shortly after midnight, he said.
"The NATO forces' air strike on the area mistakenly targeted two to three civilian houses, killing 25 civilians," Hassan said.
The dead included nine women and three children aged from six months to two years old, he said.
The rest were men, including the mullah of the mosque of the village which is in the Gereshk district about 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the town of Lashkar Gah.
Hassan said the bodies of the dead were lying where they had been hit.
The information that 20 Taliban were killed had come from "reports we get from the area and from the locals," he said. "The militants seem to have taken the Taliban bodies with them."
ISAF said the target of the strike was a "compound (that) was assessed to have been occupied by up to 30 insurgent fighters, most of whom were killed in the engagement."