Nato regrets deaths, says Taliban 'behead and burn'

Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer pledged on Tuesday to investigate civilian deaths in Afghanistan, but contrasted Nato's record there with a Taliban who "behead people, burn schools, kill women and children".
The rising toll on civilians is putting pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai - who like the Nato chief was in Rome for a conference on the rule of law in his country - in the bloodiest period since the Taliban government fell in 2001.
In the latest major incident this weekend, Afghan officials said 45 civilians were killed by an air strike, though the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) set the toll from the pre-dawn raid lower.
"Our opponent mixes and mingles with innocent civilians. They are in a different moral category," De Hoop Scheffer said after meeting Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, whose country contributes to the nearly 50,000-strong international mission.
"We do not intentionally kill, they behead people, they burn schools, they kill women and children. Let us not forget," said the Nato chief. He declined comment on the death toll itself.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, also at the Rome talks, struck a cautionary note, saying civilian casualties, no matter how accidentally they were caused, would only strengthen the Taliban.
Civilian deaths have sparked demands for the expulsion of foreign troops and Karzai's resignation. An Afghan rights group said this week that foreign air strikes had recently killed more civilians than the Taliban and should be cut back.
Ban, in a speech, said both Afghan and international forces had to "act strictly in accordance with international humanitarian law" to avoid discrediting their campaign against the Taliban.
"However difficult this may prove against a shadowy and unscrupulous adversary, we simply cannot hide from the reality that civilian casualties, no matter how accidental, strengthen our enemies and undermine our efforts," Ban said.
The Nato chief would not discuss the weekend's death toll from the air strike in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province. "Discussing numbers is not the right way to go. Let's investigate first and draw up conclusions later," he said.
Civilian deaths is not on the official agenda of the two-day conference on the rule of law. But Karzai said that daily violence meant justice remained elusive in parts of Afghanistan. "For those Afghans living in the southern provinces of Afghanistan who face murder and destruction at the hands of terrorists or even to those civilians who inadvertently fall victim to counter terrorism operations, to them ... justice is reduced to a bleak minimum," Karzai said.