Joint probe set of Afghan civilian deaths

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From combined dispatches

KABUL, Afghanistan | The U.S.-led coalition, Afghan government and the United Nations will launch a joint probe into the deadly Aug. 22 raid in a village in the country's west, a top NATO official said Saturday.

Afghan and U.N. officials say an estimated 90 civilians, most of them children, were killed in the village of Azizabad in the western Herat province.

The incident has caused outrage in Afghanistan, where the issue of civilian casualties has been a long-standing point of contention between President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers, who dispute the civilian casualty figure.

So far, neither side has produced conclusive evidence to support its claim.

Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, the chief spokesman for the NATO-led force, said Saturday that the Afghan government, U.S.-led coalition and the U.N. mission here have agreed to a joint probe.

"We are hoping to have a quick unfolding of this investigation so we can ... basically reconcile these numbers, which are way too far apart right now," Gen. Blanchette told the Associated Press in a phone interview.

"It is obviously a case where all three have received different bits of information, and they need to reconcile this," he said. "Obviously, there is somebody that does not have the right information."

On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that a Pentagon review found the number to be far lower — five civilians killed.

Pentagon officials told the AP on the condition of anonymity, because the review has not been released publicly, that a rival clan provided misleading information that prompted the attack and that 25 militants were killed during the operation.