NATO, US commander apologizes for Afghan deaths

Associated Press

PATROL BASE PUL- I-ALAM, Afghanistan

The top commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan offered a somber apology Friday in an eastern province where officials say 18 civilians — half of them children — were killed in a coalition airstrike this week.

U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen spent several hours with local Afghans to express his regrets about Wednesday’s pre-dawn raid to capture a Taliban operative in Baraki Barak district of Logar province.

“We take these deaths very seriously, and I grieve with their families,” Allen told the provincial governor, an elderly man with a long, white beard and gray turban. “I have children of my own, and I feel the pain of this.”

Hours after Allen’s visit, the U.S.-led coalition issued a statement saying that it had completed its initial assessment of the operation and confirmed that “in addition to the insurgents killed during the operation, it’s also responsible for the unintended, but nonetheless tragic, death of Afghan civilians.”

Nighttime raids on militants taking cover in villages are a major irritant in Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s relationship with the international military coalition.