KABUL (AFP) — NATO-led troops accidentally killed three Afghan children in artillery fire in eastern Afghanistan Monday, the force said, the latest in a string of civilian casualties caused by foreign soldiers.
Another seven Afghans were wounded in the firing in Paktika province, close to the border with Pakistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
An ISAF patrol had come under fire in Gayan district and called for artillery to return fire, it said.
The first round accidentally landed too close to a compound, known as a qalat, and troops called for fire to be halted but a second shell had already been fired.
"The ISAF soldiers went to the qalat and found three dead children and seven wounded civilians," the statement said.
The force provided medical assistance and evacuated the wounded to military hospitals.
"ISAF deeply regrets this accident, and an investigation as to the exact circumstances of this tragic event is now under way," it said.
There has been a series of incidents in recent weeks in which Afghan civilians have been killed by international troops in the country to fight Taliban-led insurgents.
Also Monday, Afghans alleged that international troops had killed four people, including two young boys and their father, in an early morning raid in Kabul.
Hundreds of people demonstrated to protest the killings and showed reporters the bloodied bodies of the children.
The allegation that foreign forces were involved could not be verified, with ISAF and the separate US-led coalition denying involvement, as did the Afghan security forces.
"They attacked the house and killed two children, almost two years old, a woman and a man," one of the demonstrators, Mohammad Naweed, said. It was not clear if the woman was the children's mother.
Naweed said "foreign forces" also took three men from the house after blasting open the main gate and opening fire.
Monday's incidents follow allegations that the coalition killed more than 90 civilians on August 22, in the western province of Herat. The toll was reached by separate Afghan government and UN investigation teams, who said most of the dead in the strikes were children.
The coalition has rejected the charge but admitted that five civilians -- two women and three children -- were killed. They were with 25 militants who had also died, including an important Taliban commander, it has said.
A new joint investigation is expected.
Last Friday, Afghan and German troops killed two children and a woman by opening fire on cars that failed to stop at a checkpoint in the northern province of Kunduz, the German military said.
Kunduz governor Mohammad Omar said a minibus fired upon in the incident had been returning from a wedding.
Civilian casualties damage the reputation of international troops as well as the Afghan government, which analysts say need the backing of the local population if they want to beat a propaganda-heavy Taliban-led insurgency.
The Herat incident prompted the Afghan government to demand a review of the regulations under which nearly 70,000 international troops are in Afghanistan, a key battleground in the US-led "war on terror."
The coalition announced late Sunday that troops had killed more than 220 militants over the past week in the southern province of Helmand.
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