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A SERIES of airstrikes in which hundreds of Afghan civilians have died has turned the local population increasingly against the international forces, prompting an angry President Hamid Karzai to condemn the attacks as “careless”.

Some British officers are concerned that an all-out attack on the Taliban imposed by the US general commanding Nato forces may be costing them the battle for hearts and minds.

Karzai called a news conference yesterday to deplore the latest Nato airstrike, which was said to have killed 25 civilians, including nine women and three children, in a village in Helmand province 10 miles northeast of Gereshk last week.

Up to 30 Taliban insurgents, who may have shielded themselves behind the villagers, were killed. An inquiry is being held.

Karzai thanked the international community for its military assistance but added: “That does not mean that Afghan lives have no value. Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such.”

This weekend it emerged that an American A10 Tankbuster was called in by British and coalition troops during the incident on Thursday night after they came under Taliban attack.

The Tankbuster, which has acquired a fearsome reputation for destruction with its formidable 30mm Avenger cannon, fired into a mudwalled compound where the Taliban had sought shelter.

The wider civilian death toll is causing tension between British and US forces. “They really don’t get it,” said one senior British officer in Afghanistan. “If they come under fire, any Afghan anywhere near them is deemed to be a terrorist.”

General Dan McNeil, who took over as Nato commander from David Richards, the British general, in February, reversed a policy of attempting to sideline the Taliban, instead confronting them head-on across southern Afghanistan. The result has been a series of military successes, tempered by a sharply increased civilian death toll.

So far this year nearly 250 civilians have been killed by foreign and Afghan forces, exceeding the total for the whole of last year.

The British are sometimes held responsible for US actions. Last week a Sunday Times investigation into an allegation that British troops had killed up to 48 civilians on May 27 established that the forces involved were in fact American. But the villagers of Haji Nabu blame the British and have been left with an abiding hatred of them.

According to the villagers’ account, a coalition jet bombed a house while a wedding party was being held. The wedding guests included Haji Abdul Satar, 50, who said that his daughters Najeba, 9, and Fatima, 10, had been killed and one son badly injured. In all, he claimed, 47 or 48 villagers had died in the attack.

“I was in the house,” Satar said. “We were having a wedding party when I heard a massive explosion. We ran outside and we saw that a British vehicle had been hit by a mine and then the British started opening fire.

“We all ran into our houses and later the jets arrived. They dropped one bomb and it hit a wall and demolished it. Dust and dirt went everywhere. Then they dropped another and it destroyed our house.

“Ask God how I survived because two of my daughters, Najeba and Fatima, were killed, and my son Abdul Samad was injured. It was meant to be a wedding and at these events you expect happiness, dancing and to see your relatives. You don’t expect your daughters to be killed for no reason.”

All of six witnesses interviewed by this newspaper put the number of dead at 47 or 48. Others who made similar claims included two MPs and the chief of police for Gereshk. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, which is investigating the incident, says that it has so far confirmed 19 civilian casualties.

A spokesman for the American-led coalition forces denied that any innocent people had died. “We found no credible evidence to suggest this incident resulted in any civilian casualties,” the spokesman said.

Claims and counterclaims surrounding the incident illustrate the difficulty of determining the truth in a lawless and dangerous country where checking facts on the ground is often impossible. But the consequences are beyond doubt: the Afghan population is holding western forces to account for atrocities, even as the Taliban resort to desperate tactics and use children in suicide missions.

The tough American approach has ensured some progress against the Taliban. Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, one of the six most wanted men, was killed in Helmand last December. Mullah Dadullah, a top commander, died in May.

British and American special forces have eliminated several other high and middle level commanders and have disrupted the Taliban’s ability to plan and implement attacks. This week there were some reports that the Taliban were in retreat.

There is confusion over the goals of foreign troops: the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) is responsible for peacekeeping, stabili-sation and, in the south, counter-insurgency against the Taliban. It naturally wants to win over the local population and minimise civilian casualties.

A separate US-dominated coalition force of special forces and elite infantry has the job of hunting down Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders. Its aims and ruthless methods are often seriously at odds with those of Isaf.

Among British officers there is a strong feeling that the Americans sometimes have a gung-ho attitude. “British forces tend to put more of a continuing emphasis on winning hearts and minds, while the US approach is about winning the military battle at all costs,” said one British officer.

“I could cite a number of instances when British pilots pulled out of attacks because they believed that civilians were involved. I can’t say a US pilot wouldn’t do the same thing, but it’s less likely.”

Deadliest attacks since 2001

2007

1 May 40 civilians killed by US air raid on the village of Soro, in the Sangin district of Helmand province

8 May 50 civilians, including women and chidren,are killed by US and Nato bombings in Herat province of western Afghanistan

2006

26 October 80 villagers die in two separate night air raids, followed by rocket attacks against villages in Kandahar province

2004

18 January A US airstrike on a village in Uruzgan province kills four children and seven adults

2002

1 July US airstrike kills 48 people at a wedding party in Del Rawad village in Uruzgan province

2001

21 October Bomb at hospital and mosque in Herat kills 100 people

11 October Up to 200 people die in bombing of Karam

10 October Sultanpur mosque in Jalalabad is bombed twice, killing more than 120 people

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