7 killed in NATO airstrike in Afghanistan

Seven members of the Afghan security forces have been killed in a NATO air strike in remote western Afghanistan.

It comes as NATO's International Security Assistance Force said it was investigating an incident in Badghis province in which more than 25 international and Afghan forces were wounded.

Five of the 25 wounded were US soldiers, injured in what a Western military official, speaking anonymously, said was 'friendly fire'.

Local police said a party looking for the two missing soldiers clashed with Taliban and that alliance aircraft were called in to provide support.

While the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force withheld official comment on how the 25 were wounded, police said the casualties occurred when the air strike mistakenly targeted international troops.

A Western military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity told AFP it appeared to be a 'blue-on-blue incident,' or friendly fire, with 'a huge number of casualties.'

NATO began its search operation in the barren, rugged area together with Afghan forces after the two paratroopers, from the 82nd Airborne Division, went missing on Wednesday during a routine supply mission.

Afghan police said the two had drowned.

As far as the injured were concerned, an ISAF statement said only that initial reports 'indicate more than 25 ISAF and Afghan National Security Force members were wounded' during a joint operation in western Afghanistan.

'The wounded service members were initially treated on the scene and subsequently flown to an ISAF medical facility for further treatment.'

It added that the force was searching for 'two missing US Army soldiers'.

The deputy police chief of the northwestern province of Badghis, Abdul Jabar Saleh, said the missing men had drowned while trying to recover airdropped packages and that their bodies had not yet been recovered.

He said a number of NATO and Afghan personnel had died as they came up against Taliban militants during the search on Friday and that alliance aircraft carried out air strikes.

Information on casualties was unclear, he said, putting the number of American soldiers 'dead or wounded' at seven.

Two Afghan soldiers had been killed and 12 wounded, he said, adding that three Afghan police had also been killed and one other wounded.

A Taliban spokesman said the toll was far higher than the Afghan police or NATO were reporting.

Meanwhile, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said about 200 UN expatriate staff would be temporarily relocated outside Afghanistan in the wake of a deadly rebel attack on a guesthouse on October 28 which killed five UN workers.

UN officials said another 400 expatriates were being relocated to safer sites within Afghanistan.

There are more than 100,000 troops under NATO and US command deployed to Afghanistan to fight a Taliban insurgency that is now at its deadliest in the eight years since US-led troops toppled the Islamist regime in Kabul.

US President Barack Obama is currently considering a request from his military commanders to boost troop numbers by up to 40,000, a decision that is not likely to be made public for a number of weeks yet.