A U.S. air strike killed a number of Afghan civilians, officials said on Wednesday, as President Hamid Karzai called on newly elected Barack Obama to make it his priority to stop the killing of innocents, according to Reuters. Scores of civilians have been killed in U.S. air strikes this year leading to seething resentment against the presence of foreign troops and a rift between Karzai and his Western backers, Reuters reported. Karzai referred to the incident in the Shah Wali Kot district in the southern Taliban heartland of Kandahar province. "By bombing Afghanistan, the war against terrorism cannot be won," Karzai told a news conference. "As we speak today, we had again civilian casualties ... In Shah Wali Kot of Kandahar we had civilian casualties," he said. Karzai did not give any more details but several villagers who had taken a group of wounded to the hospital in Kandahar city said more than 90 people had been killed and dozens more wounded in the air strike on Monday, which they said hit a wedding party. The U.S. military said it was checking reports. "The coalition and Afghan authorities are investigating reports of non-combatant casualties in the village of Wech Baghtu," said U.S. forces spokesman Commander Jeff Bender. "If innocent people were killed in this operation, we apologise and express our condolences to the families and the people of Afghanistan," he said in a statement.
