MARJAH, Afghanistan, Feb 22, (Agencies): A NATO airstrike in Afghanistan mistakenly killed 27 civilians, the government said on Monday, hurting a campaign to win over the local population and defeat Taleban insurgents.
The Afghan cabinet condemned the killings as “unjustifiable” after an aircraft fired on civilians, mistaking them for insurgents, in the south near the border of Uruzgan and Dai Kondi provinces.
Civilian casualties have caused friction between the government and foreign forces, who have launched two big offensives in the past eight months in a bid to turn the tide of a growing Taleban-led insurgency. Initially the Afghan cabinet reported 33 deaths, but later clarified that 27 had died. Sunday’s toll was still the highest number of civilian deaths in months.
The incident was not part of Operation Mushtarak, a major NATO-led campaign to clear Taleban militants out of neighbouring Helmand province in the south.
Nonetheless, it could still undermine government and NATO efforts to win over civilians under a plan to wrest control of Taleban bastions and hand them over to state authorities before the start of a gradual U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011.

“Initial reports indicate that NATO fired Sunday on a convoy of three vehicles ... killing at least 27 civilians, including four women and one child, and injuring 12 others,” the Afghan cabinet said in a statement.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement civilians had been killed as they approached a joint NATO-Afghan unit, but did not say how many.
An investigation has begun, it said.
“We are extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives,” US General Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said in the ISAF statement.
“I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission.”
McChrystal’s counter-insurgency strategy emphasises seizing population centres and avoiding combat in built-up areas whenever possible to avert civilian deaths. The number of civilians killed by NATO troops has declined since he took command in mid-2009.
Meanwhile, Police say a suicide bomber has killed 15 people in eastern Afghanistan, including a key tribal leader who played a major role in a failed attempt to capture al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in 2001.

Police Gen Mohammad Ayub Salangi says the bomber set off his explosives in Khogyani district next to a small group of tribal elders and government workers as they were meeting Monday with a few hundred Afghan refugees who had recently returned from Pakistan.
Among the dead was Mohammad Zaman Ghamsharik, better known as Haji Zaman. He and another warlord from the Jalalabad area, Hazrat Ali, commanded Afghan forces who cornered the al-Qaeda leader in the mountains of Nangarhar province but allowed him to slip away.
Last Saturday, Karzai called on NATO to do more to protect civilians during stepped-up military operations against the Taleban.
NATO has taken steps in recent months to reduce civilian casualties — primarily through reducing airstrikes and tightening rules of engagement — as part of a new strategy to focus on protecting the Afghan people to win their loyalty over from the Taleban.
A total of 2,412 Afghan civilians were killed last year, the highest number in any year of the eight-year war, according to a UN report. But deaths attributed to NATO troops dropped nearly 30 percent as a result of new rules curbing airpower and heavy weapons when civilians are at risk, it said.
That strategy is facing a major test in Marjah, where Taleban fighters have mingled among civilians in hopes that US and Afghan troops will hold their fire.