17 civilians killed in Afghan airstrike

At least 17 civilians, including women and children, were killed in a military operation in Afghanistan, according to a provincial government official giving the first official death toll yesterday.
Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), which locals accuse of killing the villagers on Thursday in misguided air strikes, said it was trying to establish what had happened.
A spokesman for the government of the southern province of Helmand, Daud Ahmadi, said villagers had brought 17 bodies to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, to show the governor.
"Most of the bodies we saw had shrapnel wounds but at this stage we don't know if the shrapnel was from a rocket or a bomb which collapsed a house," Ahmadi said.
He would not say how many of the bodies he saw were women and children. The government was investigating how they were killed, he said.
Residents of Nad Ali district just east of Lashkar Gah said Thursday a military air strike had killed 25 civilians and they had taken the bodies of 16 to the town as "proof".