KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged president-elect Barack Obama to end civilian casualties once and for all Wednesday amid reports that dozens of women and children were killed in U.S. air strikes on a wedding party in southern Afghanistan.
The U.S. military said it was investigating the reported bombing and a U.S. spokesman added that "if innocent people were killed, we apologize and express our condolences."
The governor of Kandahar province, Rahmatullah Raufi, told a news conference Wednesday that the Taliban attacked an American convoy in an area where a wedding party was also underway.
The Americans responded by calling in an air strike, he said.
"It was a mistake -- they hit the wedding party and thought it was the Taliban," Raufi said.
"The plane hit the mountain and the village, too, which resulted in heavy civilian casualties."
The governor declined to venture a guess on the number of dead and accounts from others varied widely.
One witnesses, Juma Khan, said 37 people, including 23 children and 10 women, were killed in his compound. A senior official with Kandahar's provincial government put the death toll as high as 90.
"When the fighting started, the jets came and bombed," said Juma Khan, who was lying in a hospital bed with his eyes bandaged.
"To whom do we cry and to whom do we ask about casualties," he said rubbing his hands over the bandages.
"We are not Taliban so why did they bomb us?"
The report of air strikes in the Shah Wali Kot district comes three months after the Afghan government and a preliminary UN investigation found that a U.S. operation killed some 90 civilians in western Afghanistan.
Initially, U.S. officials said only a handful of people died in the attack on the village in Herat province, but a subsequent American investigation prompted by video evidence raised that toll to 33.
Canadian ground troops also operate in the Shah Wali Kot region but were not involved in Monday's hostilities.
"I can confirm that no Canadian troops were involved in the incidents in Shah Wali Kot," said Canadian Forces spokesman Maj. Jay Janzen in Kandahar.
"Canadian troops are responsible for Kandahar province. We do occasionally go into the Shah Wali Kot area but do not proceed as far north as where the incident occurred."
Karzai referred to the bombing at a news conference Wednesday held to congratulate Obama on his victory in the U.S. presidential election.
Karzai said his first demand of he new president is prevent civilian casualties in operations by foreign forces, citing specifically air strikes that he said had caused deaths in the Shah Wali Kot district.
"As we speak, there are civilian casualties in Afghanistan," Karzai said.
U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the Afghan Ministry of Interior issued a news release to announce an investigation into the incident.
"The coalition and Afghan authorities are investigating reports of non-combatant casualties in the village of Wech Baghtu," said Cmdr. Jeff Bender, deputy public affairs officer, U.S. Forces Afghanistan.
"Though facts are unclear at this point, we take very seriously our responsibility to protect the people of Afghanistan and to avoid circumstances where non-combatant civilians are placed at risk," he said.
"If innocent people were killed in this operation, we apologize and express our condolences to the families and the people of Afghanistan."
Military personnel have been dispatched to the area to begin the investigation.
