Kabul: An Afghan human rights group said today that at least 88 people, including 20 women, were killed in a joint Afghan-US coalition military operation in western Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai condemned the violence and said most of the dead were civilians.

Karzai, lamenting that his efforts to get the US and NATO to prevent civilian casualties had not been successful, said in a statement that the Afghan government would soon announce "necessary measures" to prevent civilian deaths. He provided no details.

Meanwhile, an Afghan school principal and a police official said Afghan army troops tried to hand out food and clothes today to Afghans in Azizabad the village in the Shindand district of Herat province where the operation took place Thursday but villagers started throwing stones at the soldiers, who then fired on the Afghans and wounded up to eight.

US coalition spokeswoman Rumi Nielson-Green said Thursday s operation was led by Afghan National Army commandos, with support from the coalition. Originally the coalition said the battle killed 30 militants, but Nielson-Green said five civilians two women and three children connected to the militants were among the dead.

Ahmad Nader Nadery, commissioner of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, said one of the group s researchers visited Azizabad yesterday and found that 88 people had been killed and 25 houses had been damaged, including 15 that were destroyed.

Nadery said the information was preliminary and the group would publish a final report. He did not provide a breakdown of how many of the 88 were civilians or militants.
Source : PTI