NATO airstrike is said to kill 6 Afghan civilians

KABUL — A NATO airstrike on a compound in southwestern Afghanistan killed a family of six, a local tribal leader said Thursday, despite orders from the top U.S. commander to avoid airpower if civilians are at risk.

The U.S. military said the airstrike occurred after troops came under fire from the compound late Wednesday.

There were conflicting reports about the attack, which took place in southern Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold.

A British military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nick Richardson, said there were unconfirmed reports that 12 people were killed — including six children, two women and four militants.

Ghulam Mohammad Khan, a tribal leader, said the dead included a farmer, his wife and four children, as well as three “guests.”

Civilian deaths have been a source of friction between President Hamid Karzai and U.S. military commanders and have infuriated many ordinary Afghans, who claim international soldiers use heavy-handed tactics.

The commander of U.S. and NATO forces, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has made protecting innocent Afghans a priority since taking command this summer and has ordered troops to limit airstrikes.

“We must protect the Afghan people from all threats — from the enemy, from our own actions,” McChrystal said in a speech Thursday in London. “We are going to have to do things dramatically differently, even uncomfortably differently in the way we operate.”

The general did not directly address the deaths in Helmand.

In Logar province, in eastern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the governor said villagers claimed a U.S. operation overnight killed an innocent shopkeeper and complained that American forces had wrongly detained three civilians. Din Mohammad Darwesh, the spokesman, said villagers were refusing to bury the shopkeeper’s body, in order to prove his innocence, and demanding the release of the three men.

The United Nations says a total of 1,500 civilians were killed in Afghanistan from January through August, up from 1,145 for the same period of 2008. About 68 percent of the deaths were due to the insurgents, a U.N. report released last weekend said.

Also Thursday, a U.S. military helicopter made an emergency landing after coming under rocket-propelled grenade fire in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangahar province, U.S. military spokeswoman Capt. Regina Willis said.

There were no serious injuries, she said.

President Barack Obama is considering whether to send thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to confront a growing Taliban-led insurgency.

Top military commanders and congressional Republicans are pushing for a troop increase, but there are divisions within the Obama administration on whether to escalate the U.S. presence.

White House officials say it may take weeks more before the president decides whether to overhaul the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan or send more troops.