More than 100 people, including militants, civilians and seven children, have been killed in three days of fierce fighting between NATO forces and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Other estimates pegged the death toll at more than 200; however, precise numbers were not immediately available because of ongoing fighting in Uruzgan province.
On Sunday, seven boys were killed in a U.S.-led air strike targeting al Qaeda militants in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition confirmed today.
In an operation supported by Afghan forces, jets targeted a compound that also contained a mosque and a madrassa, or Islamic school, in the Zarghun Shah district of Paktika province.
The coalition statement said that early reports indicated seven children at the school and "several militants" were killed, and that two militants had been detained.
Coalition troops had "surveillance on the compound all day and saw no indications there were children inside the building," said Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman.
Belcher blamed al Qaeda for the loss of innocent lives, saying they did not let the children leave the targeted compound, which was located about 180 kilometres south of Kabul.
The coalition said other children who survived the air strike alleged the victims were held inside the building and beaten and pushed away if they tried to leave.
"If we knew that there were children inside the building, there was no way that that air strike would have occurred," said Sgt. 1st Class Dean Welch, another coalition spokesman.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has sent a team with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission to investigate the incident.
There is mounting concern over the rising number of civilian deaths as a result of foreign-led strikes.
President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly called for foreign troops to minimize civilian casualties.
"This kind of attack has caused widespread anger in Afghanistan for quite some time -- another air strike that happened to take out civilians at the same time when they were targeting insurgents," CTV's South Asia Bureau Chief Paul Workman reported from Kandahar.
"We've seen it many times in the past, the government in Kabul will probably issue a statement of anger as it's done in the past saying NATO has to be much more careful in the way it wages this battle," Workman told CTV Newsnet.
Meanwhile, the head of Uruzgan's provincial council, Mullah Ahmidullah Khan, said clashes in the Chora district have killed 60 civilians, 70 suspected Taliban militants and 16 Afghan police.
An official close to the Uruzgan governor told The Associated Press that 70 to 75 civilians had been killed or wounded. The source, who asked to remain anonymous, said more than 100 Taliban and more than 35 police had also been killed.
The U.S. military also said three coalition soldiers and their Afghan interpreter died Sunday in a bomb blast in the south.
The deaths came after "an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle in Kandahar province," a statement said.
More than 2,400 people, mainly insurgents, have been killed as a result of insurgency-related violence this year, according to an AP count based on figures from U.S., NATO, UN and Afghan officials.
With files from The Associated Press
