KABUL, Afghanistan, May 30 (UPI) -- The head of a NATO-led force Monday apologized for an airstrike that killed at least nine civilians in Afghanistan, saying the force would "make amends."
"On behalf of the coalition, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force, Gen. [David] Petraeus, and Commander of the ISAF, Joint Lt. Gen. [David] Rodriguez, I want to offer my sincere apologies for the nine civilians who were killed during the incident in Nowzad District, Helmand province, that occurred on 28 May," Maj. Gen. John Toolan, commander of the ISAF's Regional Command Southwest, said in a statement Monday.
Afghan officials earlier said as many as 12 children and two women died in the Saturday airstrike. Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the strike.
The coalition, which has been fighting the war in Afghanistan since 2001, "takes each civilian injury or death extremely seriously," Toolan's statement said. "It is our top priority to prevent civilian causalities and we continue to improve our practices and strive to prevent these types of incidents from happening."
The force later discovered that the insurgents its troops attacked, after a U.S. Marine was killed, had "purposefully occupied" a compound that housed "innocent civilians," Toolan's statement said.
"While I know there is no price on human life, we will ensure that we make amends with the families in accordance with Afghan culture," his statement said.
Local and national Afghan officials had no immediate comment.
As many as 34,000 civilians have been killed by ISAF forces since 2001, human-rights groups estimate.
