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FT.COM

By Fazel Reshad in Kabul, Matthew Green and Agencies

Published: February 14 2010 14:03 | Last updated: February 14 2010 17:43

A pair of rockets fired by Nato forces at Taliban rebels veered off course and killed 12 civilians on Sunday.

The incident underscored the risk that an offensive designed to bolster support for Afghanistan’s western-backed government could instead fuel public anger.

The rockets were aimed at insurgents shooting at international and Afghan troops taking part in a big operation launched on Saturday to secure the town of Marjah and surrounding areas. However, the weapons landed 300m wide their mark, according to the Nato-led force in Afghanistan.

General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander who has made protecting civilians the centrepiece of his strategy since taking command of the force last year, apologised.

”We deeply regret this tragic loss of life,” Gen McChrystal said in a statement. ”The current operation in central Helmand is aimed at restoring security and stability to this vital area of Afghanistan. It’s regrettable that in the course of our joint efforts, innocent lives were lost.”

The International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said it had suspended use of the vehicle-borne rocket system involved in the attack, which happened in the Nad-e-Ali district outside Marjah. A combined force of 15,000 US, British and Afghan troops launched one of the Nato-led force’s biggest operations since 2001 in the area on Saturday.

The rocket system is commonly used by US troops, although Isaf did not give the nationality of the soldiers responsible.

The deaths will raise fresh questions over whether Gen McChrystal’s offensive can succeed in fostering a greater sense of security by driving out the Taliban, or might backfire by increasing resentment of foreign troops and their allies in the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai.

As of Sunday night, confirmed civilian deaths outnumbered the toll of Nato troops in the offensive, which military officials put at two: one US marine and one UK soldier. Provincial officials in Helmand said more than 27 insurgents had been killed since the offensive began before dawn on Saturday when US marines swooped into Marjah in helicopters.

Gen McChrystal believes that protecting the population is the key to turning the tide of the war against the Taliban, and he tightened the rules governing air strikes, which are responsible for many of the deaths caused by foreign troops, after taking up his command of the Nato-led force last year. The United Nations says Taliban bombings account for the bulk of civilian deaths in the conflict.

However, reports that operations by foreign troops have caused civilian casualties have sparked a series of protests in various Afghan towns in the past few months. The Taliban has used such reports to paint international forces as brutal occupiers.

After initially encountering only sporadic resistance, journalists travelling with military units in Marjah said on Sunday that the Taliban appeared to be intensifying their fight in several locations in the town, although the fighting was sporadic.

Reuters news agency reported that insurgents opened fire on a ceremony to raise the Afghan flag at a position held by US marines on Sunday, designed to mark progress by US and Afghan forces pushing into Marjah. A CNN reporter embedded with marines also reported incoming fire.

“Now the fighting is going on, we can hear loud bangs and there is smoke and dust in the air,” Abdul Jallil Khan, 42, a farmer who lives in Marjah, told the Financial Times by telephone. “The fighting is very hot. It seems to me that the Taliban are resisting.”

US military officials said on Sunday that the joint force had entered most of the town. Mullah Abdul Razaq Akhond, a Taliban commander in the town, told the FT that his fighters had inflicted heavy casualties on foreign forces.

The offensive is the biggest operation launched by the Nato-led force in Afghanistan since Barack Obama, the US president, ordered 30,000 extra forces to the country in December.

The Nato-led force says it plans to stay long enough to help the Afghan government rapidly build up local administration as part of a broader plan to garner support for the government of Mr Karzai, ahead of a planned pullout by US forces due to begin in mid-2011.