Kabul: NATO is investigating claims that its planes killed 14 members of an Afghan civilian road construction crew while hunting Taliban fighters in a mountainous region.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force said its warplanes conducted airstrikes against Taliban fighters in eastern Nuristan province on Monday night, and that a militant leader was targeted. "ISAF was engaged in Nurgaram and Du Ab (districts), and in those places we used airstrikes against (Taliban)," ISAF spokesman Brig Gen Carlos Branco told a news conference.

"The situation is not clear at all at this stage. We are carrying out the investigation and trying to get a clear picture." A Pentagon spokesman in Washington called the operation a "legitimate airstrike," believed to have killed the Taliban commander of Nuristan. But Afghan officials said bombs hit two tents housing Afghan engineers and laborers contracted by the US military to build a road, killing 14 workers.

They blamed faulty intelligence for the mistake. "All of our poor workers have been killed," said Sayed Noorullah Jalili, director of Amerifa, a Kabul-based road construction company. "I don t think the Americans were targeting our people. I'm sure it's the enemy of the Afghans who gave the Americans this wrong information."

Amerifa received the contract to build 220 kilometers of road for the US military last year, Jalili said. The incident is the first major blunder by foreign troops in months.

It follows sharp criticism earlier this year of mass civilian casualties in operations by US and NATO-led troops which have undermined their reputation among Afghan civilians and hurt the government of Western-backed President Hamid Karzai.

Source : PTI