NATO Admits Afghan Children Killed In Operation

The U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan has conceded that several children died during a military operation in the northeastern province of Kapisa, but says it's not clear if NATO was to blame.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has condemned the air strikes and ordered an investigation after saying that eight children were killed on February 8.

A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Carsten Jacobson, said that an ongoing assessment showed that troops engaged "a group of men, who were armed."

He said that additional casualties were discovered following the engagement, but that currently NATO "can neither confirm nor deny" that those deaths had a "direct link to the engagement."

Compiled from agency reports