Air raids against suspected hideouts of Taliban militants in Ghazni province, south of Afghanistan, however, claimed the lives of eight civilians including two women, a member of the Provincial Council Abdul Nabi said Wednesday.
An injured Afghan child from the Bala Baluk, district of Afghanistan, is seen on a bed at the hospital in Farah province of Afghanistan Tuesday, May 5, 2009. More than 100 innocent civilians were killed in the airstrike by the US army. (Photo: AP)
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In talks with media, Nabi added that the raids took place at 3 a.m. local time (2330 GMT) in Gero district during which eight non-combatants were killed.
The victims, he added, include two women, two children and four men.
However, the U.S.-led Coalition forces admitted in a statement that "during this engagement, a ricocheting round killed a civilian female."
It added that several armed enemy combatants were killed in the operation and Coalition forces found grenades and rifles in their hideout.
Civilian casualties became a sensitive issue in war-plagued Afghanistan while the new NATO commander, U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, has issued the revised directives recently to avoid deaths of non-combatants during the anti-Taliban operations.