Hamid Karzai tells Nato not to act as occupier





President Hamid Karzai has warned the Nato-led force in Afghanistan that launching attacks on Afghan homes in pursuit of insurgents was "not allowed" and that patience with the tactic had run out after a spate of civilian casualties.


"Nato must learn that air strikes on Afghan homes are not allowed and that Afghan people have no tolerance for that anymore," Karzai told a news conference in Kabul today (NZ time).


He reacted angrily after NATO air strikes on two homes inadvertently killed at least nine people - most of them children - in southern Helmand on Sunday.


US General David Petraeus, Lieutenant General David Rodriguez and the commander of the southwest say Nato's top priority is to prevent civilian casualties and it takes such cases very seriously.


In a joint statement issued on Sunday by US Marine Major General John Toolan, they said the airstrike took place after a US Marine was killed and five insurgents took cover in a compound and kept fighting.


It said the compound had civilians inside.


Toolan said the airstrike resulted in nine civilians deaths. The number differs from that given by some Afghan officials, who say as many as 12 children and two women were killed.


The mistaken killing of civilians by foreign troops, usually during air strikes or night raids, is a major source of friction between Karzai and his Western backers, and complicates efforts to win support from ordinary Afghans for an increasingly unpopular war.


Karzai said he had warned US and Nato troops that their "arbitrary and unnecessary operations" were killing innocent people every day.