Afghan officials are investigating reports from a remote area of eastern Afghanistan that US warplanes bombed a wedding party this morning, killing more than 20 civilians including women and children.

The incident in Deh Bala, a mountainous district of Nangahar Province very close to the Pakistan border, is the second alleged episode of “collateral damage” involving American aircraft in three days.

President Hamid Karzai ordered a formal investigation into another episode in the province of Nuristan on Friday in which 15 civilians were reported killed after US planes bombed two vehicles.

Both claims have been challenged by American army spokesmen who said that groups of Taleban insurgents were clearly identified in each of the bombings.

"We have had no reports of any non-combatants killed or injured in this incident," said 1st Lieutenant Nathan Perry, a US spokesman, of the latest attack, "this may just be normal, typical militant propaganda".

A statement released by the US military said: "Intelligence revealed a large group of militants operating in Deh Bala district. Coalition forces identified the militants in a mountainous region and used precision air strikes to kill them."

However, the governor of Deh Bala, Haji Amishah Gul, told the Times: "So far there are 27 people, including women and children, who have been buried. Another 10 have been wounded. The attack happened at 6.30AM. Just two of the dead are men, the rest are women and children. The bride is among the dead."

Afghan officials said that police were trying to reach the area of the incident, identified by local people as Ka Chona village. This afternoon there were reports of a number of injured men, women and children from the area admitted to hospital in the city of Jalalabad, the capital of Nangahar.

One of the injured, who identified himself as Kerate, said that a group of around 70 people, mostly women, were escorting the bride to meet her groom as local tradition dictates.

"We were bombed. I couldn't figure out what had happened and I went unconscious. When I woke up, I saw lots of people killed and injured."

Civilian deaths are a deeply emotive issue amongst ordinary Afghans and one on which the Afghan President Hamid Karzai has directly criticised Western forces on numerous occasions.

An early public relations disaster for Western forces was the bombing of a wedding party in Uruzgan Province in July 2002 after US pilots mistook celebratory gunfire for an attack.

Figures released last week by the United Nations claimed that around 700 Afghan civilians have lost their lives so far this year in violence, an increase of around two thirds on the same period last year.

However, the United Nations said that numbers of civilians killed by Western troops were 255 of this total, although Nato claims this figure is fewer than 50.

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