11 die in Afghan clash amid claim U.S. killed 34 civilians

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Police and Taliban militants battled Friday in a fresh clash that killed 11 people, while a human-rights group estimated that nearly three dozen civilians died this week in a U.S. airstrike on a southern village — double the official toll.

Extending days of stepped-up violence, Taliban rebels ambushed a police patrol in central Ghazni province. The ensuing battle left 10 militants and a policeman dead, local police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said.

Abdul Qadar Noorzai, the director of the Kandahar office of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said Afghans who had fled their small village of Azizi after the strike by U.S. warplanes this week told him that about 25 family members died in one mud-brick home and that nine others perished in the village's religious school.

Villagers reported burying about 35 "unknown people," meaning militants from outside their area, he said, and about 11 civilians were wounded.

The estimate of 34 dead civilians more than doubled the number given by the governor of Kandahar and President Hamid Karzai, who said that 16 had died.

The U.S.-led coalition has said its estimate of civilian deaths was in line with the governor's. Sgt. Chris Miller, a coalition spokesman, said Friday he wasn't aware of a new estimate and that the coalition's figure remained the same.

Haji Ikhlaf, a resident of Azizi who was wounded in the attack, said this week that villagers had buried 26 civilians.

The coalition has said up to 80 militants were killed, although 60 of those fatalities were unconfirmed, in what appeared to be one of the deadliest airstrikes since U.S.-led forces ousted the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001.

Karzai has called for an investigation and on Wednesday urged the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan to make "every effort" to ensure civilians' safety.