Civilian Deaths, Nato | featured news

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

A Tripoli apartment building near a school is destroyed, killing 9 people and injuring 18 others. Libya blames NATO, which confirms that planes were operating above the city at the time of the alleged attack.

Afghan officials said Sunday that a NATO airstrike killed 14 civilians, all of them women and children, in the southern province of Helmand on Saturday night. Local officials said the strike was aimed at Taliban fighters and missed. NATO said it was investigating.

The coalition has told the rebels that they are no less subject to bombardment by NATO planes than pro-Qaddafi forces if they endanger civilians.

The attack on the boys amounted to one of the worst cases of mistaken killings of children by foreign-led forces in the Afghanistan war.

The American military has not yet confirmed the deaths from Friday’s strike. It would be the worst civilian toll in an attack in almost a year.

Western military officials acknowledge that none of those in a car fired on by soldiers had links to the insurgency.

A NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan has killed 33 people after an aircraft fired on civilians mistakenly thought to be insurgents, the Afghan government said on Monday.

The deaths are the first civilian casualties since the start of the attack on the Taliban stronghold of Marja. NATO says it is suspending use of the weapons system used in the deadly strike.

Reporting from The Outskirts Of Marja, Afghanistan, and Kabul -- As U.S.