The US says air raids were called in to assist the Afghan army[AFP]

The move came after a delegation appointed by Karzai travelled to the Shindand airstrip and Azizabad village in Herat to investigate reports that the civilians had died.

General Jalandar Shah Behnam, the head of the corps for western Afghanistan, and commando major Abdul Jabar, were fired for "negligence and concealing facts," a presidential decree issued on Sunday read.

"In the tragic air strike and irresponsible and imprecise military operation in Azizabad village in Shindand district more than 89 of our innocent countrymen, including women and children, were martyred."

The president has regularly appealed to the US and Nato-led forces to take more care to prevent civilian casualties amid warnings that such incidents are sapping the goodwill of the Afghan people.

Conflicting accounts

However, there were still conflicting accounts of the number of civilians deaths with the US military insisting the air raids had killed 25 Taliban fighters and five civilians after it was called in to support the Afghan national army. 

The interior ministry has originally put the death toll  in the attacks on Friday in the Shindand district, about 120km south of the city of Herat, and near an airstrip used by international troops, at 76, including about 50 children and 19 women.

About 15 houses destroyed in the raids belonged to men who worked at the airstrip as security guards, locals said.

On Saturday, angru villagers and relatives of the victims had staged a demonstration, torching a police van, overturning a delivery lorry and carrying banners that read "Death to America".

"[The scene of the attack] is calm now. We're investigating the incident," General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, defence ministry spokesman, said.

"Our initial investigation shows that scores of civilians have been killed. The tragedy is much more serious than we had initially thought," he said.

Recommend this article...

Did you enjoy this article? Please bookmark it onto: