25 may have been killed in Afghanistan airstrike

[October 25, 2010]  KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- About 25 people may have been killed in a NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan on Monday, an Afghan official said.

NATO officials confirmed there had been an airstrike in Helmand province but said initial reports indicated that there were no civilian casualties. The coalition was continuing to look into the operation, the officials said.

The head of Helmand's provincial council, Fazal Bari, said local officials had told him that 25 people had been killed but that the casualty figures could rise because many bodies were still buried in the rubble.

He said the dead were inside a mosque in Baghran district, but NATO says it has no reports of a mosque being struck. Baghran is the northernmost district in Helmand, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.

"People are very angry," said eyewitness Salah Ayap, a 26-year-old driver in Maigan village where the strike took place. He said that foreign troops arrived in the village around 2 a.m. and there was a fierce gunfight before the airstrike.

Only two walls and one small room of the large mosque were now standing, he said, and villagers were digging the dead out from the rubble with farming tools and washing them for burial. He said nearby houses has also been damaged, and some civilians were wounded and a 10-year-old child killed.

In the capital of Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told reporters that once or twice a year Iran gives his office $700,000 to $975,000 for official presidential expenses. He said the U.S. has known about the Iranian assistance for years and that Washington also gives the palace "bags of money."

There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials.

Karzai's remarks came in response to a The New York Times report a day earlier that Iran was giving cash to the Afghan president's chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, to buy his loyalty and promote Iranian interests in neighboring Afghanistan.

The newspaper quoted unnamed sources saying the money had been used to pay Afghan lawmakers, tribal elders -- even Taliban commanders.

Karzai says several nations give his office money because it lacks revenue.

In an unrelated incident, an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan killed a NATO service member, the coalition said in a statement on Monday, bringing to 50 the number of coalition soldiers killed this month. The statement did not provide further details on Sunday's death.

In the eastern province of Khost, a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle at a checkpoint, killing two civilians and a police officer, said provincial police chief Abdul Hakin Esaqzoy. He said five police and five civilians were also wounded.

The Afghan insurgency has traditionally been fiercest in the country's south and east, along the border with Pakistan. Most of the insurgency's top commanders are believed to be hiding in the mountainous Pakistan border area. NATO and Afghan troops have been trying to wrest back control of the southern provinces from the Taliban since July, but attacks and roadside bombs are still daily occurrences.

NATO has also been trying to kill or capture Taliban leaders in airstrikes and in joint ground operations with the Afghan army.

Residents say the push has resulted in patches of security in the south, but the insurgency has stepped up attacks in other parts of the country, including the north, which has traditionally been more stable.

In northern Afghanistan Monday, a suicide attacker blew up his explosives-laden car in Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province, said Mahmood Akmal, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

The attacker died, but no one else was injured in the blast, which appeared to be targeting a coalition convoy, he said.

[Associated Press; By KATHARINE HOURELD]

Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Mirwais Khan in Kandahar, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

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