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US coalition kills 25 militants, 8 Afghan hostages

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-11 16:35

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A series of clashes and an airstrike in southern Afghanistan killed 25 militants and eight civilians were held hostage by insurgents, the US-led coalition said in a statement Monday.

Militants ambushed the coalition and Afghan troops along a road in the southern province of Uruzgan on Sunday, triggering gunbattles during which militants moved into a compound and took 11 civilians hostage, the statement said.

"Coalition troops called in close-air support to engage the militants hiding in the structure. They did not have knowledge of noncombatants in the buildings at that time," the coalition statement said.

As a result, eight civilians were killed and three were wounded, the coalition said. The wounded civilians were taken to a coalition base for treatment.

US 1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a coalition spokesman, said three civilian hostages survived the airstrike in Khas Uruzgan district, including an infant, a man in his 40s and a woman in her 20s.

Juma Gul Himat, the provincial police chief, said six civilians, one child and five men, were killed and three others were wounded. He could not immediately explain why the coalition said eight civilians were killed.

Himat blamed the Taliban fighters for using civilians homes for cover during the attack, thus putting civilians in danger.

The coalition regularly accuses militants of using civilian homes they commandeer to attack foreign and Afghan troops.

But President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan officials have pleaded with the coalition to avoid killing civilians, which threatens to undermine support for the government.

Karzai on Sunday urged the US-led coalition and NATO troops to go after militant sanctuaries in Pakistan, rather than bomb Afghan villages.

"The struggle against terrorism is not in the villages of Afghanistan," Karzai said. "The only result of the use of airstrikes is the killing of civilians. This is not the way to wage the fight against terrorism."