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Conflicting claims over attack on 'wedding'

Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged Washington on Thursday to liaise more closely on its military operation in Afghanistan, where Kabul says US bombs this week killed 46 civilians.

However, a US fact-finding team said on Thursday it saw only five graves and 11 injured civilians during a two-day trek through the region hit by US fire.

Locals in the area of Deh Rawud in central Uruzgan province had said more than 170 civilians were killed or injured when US aircraft dropped bombs and sprayed bullets on a wedding party in the area on Sunday night and Monday morning.

The US military continued to defend the deadly air attack, saying it had information senior Taliban leaders were sheltering in the village and that its planes had received anti-aircraft fire from several locations close to the houses.

Analysts said mounting anger about the civilian casualties could undermine Karzai's Western-backed government and complicate US efforts to track down Taliban remnants and followers of Osama bin Laden, Washington's prime suspect in the September 11 attacks.

"Arrangements should be clear...Any operation needs to be coordinated with the Afghan Defence Ministry. "Our people should be immune. People should not be hurt and the campaign against the Taliban and terrorism must not become the cause of people's harassment," Karzai told journalists in Kabul on Thursday.

"The latest information from the area is that approximately 46 individuals of the country have been martyred and nearly 130 have been wounded... We have been severely shocked by this incident ...The majority of the people were those who struggled in the forefront against the Taliban and terrorism."

Karzai said he would soon travel to Uruzgan to visit mourning families there and urged the United States not to carry out operations based only on the intelligence of informers.

But US investigators searching for clues at the site of the tragedy on Thursday reported finding only five graves and 11 injured civilians during their two-day visit to the area.

Spokesman Major Gary Tallman, speaking by telephone to reporters at the US air base at Bagram, said the team had asked to see graves of villagers killed by US action.

He said the team had been shown only one grave site where villagers said five bodies were buried, in Syansang, roughly 15 km (10 miles) from Deh Rawud.

The number of villages hit was still in question. Tallman said a reconnaissance operation on Sunday had seen villagers in the Deh Rawud area set up an 82 mm mortar, cover it when they saw US aircraft and then surround it with women and children. He said women and children may have been hit because they were placed in buildings topped with anti-aircraft guns.

Tallman said the area, near where Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was born, had been under surveillance since October and US aircraft drew anti-aircraft fire each time they flew over.

Earlier on Thursday, his team visited Syansang, also struck by US aircraft. Villagers took the team to a grave site where they said five victims of the attack were buried.

The team took photographs and documented the graves, but Tallman said it was difficult to tell if they were fresh graves. They were not allowed to dig up the graves, Tallman said.

In Kabul, dozens of Afghan women clad in blue burqas protested on Thursday against the attack. The women, who gathered outside UN headquarters, were careful to say they were not asking the Americans to leave Afghanistan, nor were they supporters of the Taliban -- they were merely expressing sympathy and anger.

The US military played a leading role in the ouster of the radical Islamist Taliban last year, something that was welcomed by millions of Afghans. But as special forces comb the country for fugitive Taliban leaders or their al Qaeda allies, there have been some civilian casualties.

Experts say Karzai's government will have to deal with anti-American feeling as a result of the tragedy, especially from the proud Pashtuns of southern and eastern Afghanistan.

"It will force Karzai to take a stronger line with the US," said prominent Pakistani author and Afghan expert Ahmed Rashid. "It could put strains on the US-Karzai relationship -- he will have to respond to public feeling."

People may be angry with Americans, he said, but that does not mean they support the Taliban. "If the Americans confuse this issue they will make things even worse," he said.

Survivors, among them young girls and old women, have told of the carnage as their party was shattered by a hail of metal from at least two gunships. One woman described it as "like an abattoir", while another said bodies were "flying like straws".

The investigators, who also include senior members of the Afghan government, are expected back in Kabul on Friday when they will hold a debriefing with Karzai or a representative, as well as US commander General Dan McNeill. They are then expected to address the media.

(Reuters)

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