HUTALA, Afghanistan — Hats and shoes littered ablood-stained field in this desolate Afghan village Sunday, a dayafter U.S. warplanes — targeting a terror suspect —mistakenly killed nine children.
American officials offered their regrets Sunday and said theywere ''deeply saddened'' by the deaths. The United Nations calledfor an investigation. And the Afghan government urged the U.S.-ledcoalition hunting Taliban and al-Qaida fighters to make sure suchan accident is never repeated.
In Hutala on Sunday, a line of fresh graves marked the tragedy,and village men stood quietly by a stream in a dusty field wherethe children had been playing. They seemed as bewildered as theywere angry.
''First they fire their rockets. Then they say it was amistake,'' Haji Amir Mohammed told The Associated Press, as dozensof American soldiers sent to investigate the incident offeredcondolences or lay in the warming winter sun. ''How can we forgivethem?''
Villagers said the young victims had been playing with marblesin a dusty field beside mud homes in this impoverished valley, some150 miles southwest of Kabul, when the A-10 ground attack aircrafthomed in.
Military officials said Sunday they had no idea children were inthe area when they decided to attack. U.S. Ambassador ZalmayKhalilzad said the suspect targeted and killed was a former Talibancommander named Mullah Wazir, adding that he was ''deeplysaddened'' by the ''tragic loss of innocent life.''
Khalilzad said the former commander ''had bragged of hispersonal involvement in attacks on innocent Afghan citizens,''including aid groups and Afghans working on the Kabul-Kandaharroad, a site of frequent violence.
Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the coalition, told theAP in Hutala that it had appeared to the pilot of the aircraft that''just that person that we wanted, that terrorist, was in thefield. So we fired on him.''
Troops discovered the children's bodies after rushing to thescene to verify that they had got Wazir. U.S. officers flew inSunday to apologize to village elders, Hilferty said.
But residents were adamant that the military had acted on bogusintelligence. Many said the man killed was not Wazir, and that theformer district commander under the Taliban had left the villagesome days before the attack.
''There are no terrorists, no Taliban or al-Qaida here,'' saidAbdul Majid Farooqi. ''Just poor people.''
The 11,500 U.S.-led troops hunting Taliban and al-Qaida remnantsin south and east Afghanistan often are supported by air power, andthere have been a string of military mishaps.
The worst occurred in July 2002, when Afghan officials said 48civilians at a wedding party were killed and 117 wounded by a U.S.Air Force AC-130 gunship in Uruzgan province, which borders Ghazniprovince.
On April 9, a U.S. warplane mistakenly bombed a home in theeastern town of Shkin, killing 11 civilians. Another air strike inNuristan province in eastern Afghanistan on Oct. 31 reportedlykilled at least eight civilians in a house.
''This incident, which follows similar incidents, adds to asense of insecurity and fear in the country,'' Lakhdar Brahimi, theU.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan, said in Kabul.
The Afghan government said it fully supported fighting terrorismbut urged the U.S.-led coalition to ''be very careful not to repeatsuch tragedies.''
Also Sunday, officials said two Turkish engineers and an Afghanhad been kidnapped along the road being build between the capital,Kabul and the city of Kandahar, bringing to five the number ofworkers abducted in Afghanistan in the last three days.
Taliban attacks have plagued the flagship road constructionproject. Four workers were killed in August, and de-miningoperations along the road were suspended last month after acarjacking. A Turkish engineer was abducted along the road Oct. 30and released after one month.
The Taliban, whose hard-line Islamic regime was ousted frompower in a U.S.-led offensive in late 2001, have stepped up attacksin recent months, targeting foreign aid workers and perceivedallies of the coalition.
International aid agencies have reduced operations inAfghanistan's south and east due to escalating violence, includingthe Nov. 16 drive-by shooting death of a French U.N. aidworker.
Associated Press writers Stephen Graham in Kabul and ChrisHawley in New York contributed to this report.
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