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Afghan men pray next to the graves of nine children killed in a U.S. air strike at a local cemetery in village of Hutala, in eastern Afghanistan, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2003. A U.S. warplane in pursuit of a 'known terrorist' attacked a village in eastern Afghanistan, Saturday, mistakenly killing nine children, officials said Sunday. Clothes and shoes of the children are seen placed on graves.  [AP]

Shoes and woven hats littered a bloodstained field in this desolate Afghan village Sunday, a day after a U.S. warplane targeting a terror suspect mistakenly killed nine children.

The United States said the suspect, a former Taliban commander, was killed in the attack, but villagers said he had left the area days ago.

American officials offered their regrets Sunday and said they were "deeply saddened" by the deaths. The United Nations called for an investigation. And the Afghan government urged the U.S.-led coalition hunting Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters to make sure such an accident is never repeated.

In Hutala on Sunday, a line of fresh graves marked the tragedy, and village men stood quietly by a stream in a dusty field where the children had been playing. They seemed as bewildered as they were angry.

"First they fire their rockets. Then they say it was a mistake," Haji Amir Mohammed told The Associated Press, as dozens of American soldiers sent to investigate the incident offered condolences or lay in the warming winter sun. "How can we forgive them?"

Villagers said the young victims had been playing with marbles in a dusty field beside mud homes in this impoverished valley, some 150 miles southwest of Kabul, when the A-10 ground attack aircraft homed in.

Military officials said Sunday they had no idea children were in the area when they decided to attack. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the suspect targeted and killed was a former Taliban commander named Mullah Wazir, adding that he was "deeply saddened" by the "tragic loss of innocent life."

An Afghan woman clad in a burqa walks past a soldier in Kabul on Dec. 7, 2003.    [Reuters]

Khalilzad said the former commander "had bragged of his personal involvement in attacks on innocent Afghan citizens," including aid groups and Afghans working on the Kabul-Kandahar road, a site of frequent violence.

Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the coalition, told AP in Hutala that it had appeared to the pilot of the aircraft that "just that person that we wanted, that terrorist, was in the field. So we fired on him."

Troops discovered the children's bodies after rushing to the scene to verify that they had got Wazir. U.S. officers flew in Sunday to apologize to village elders, Hilferty said.

But residents were adamant that the military had acted on bogus intelligence. Many said the man killed was not Wazir, and that the former district commander under the Taliban had left the village some days before the attack.

"There are no terrorists, no Taliban or Al Qaeda here," said Abdul Majid Farooqi. "Just poor people."

The 11,500 U.S.-led troops hunting Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants in south and east Afghanistan often are supported by air power, and there have been a string of military mishaps.

The worst occurred in July 2002, when Afghan officials said 48 civilians at a wedding party were killed and 117 wounded by a U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship in Uruzgan province, which borders Ghazni province.

On April 9, a U.S. warplane mistakenly bombed a home in the eastern town of Shkin, killing 11 civilians. Another air strike in Nuristan province in eastern Afghanistan on Oct. 31 reportedly killed at least eight civilians in a house.

"This incident, which follows similar incidents, adds to a sense of insecurity and fear in the country," Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan, said in Kabul.

The Afghan government said it fully supported fighting terrorism but urged the U.S.-led coalition to "be very careful not to repeat such tragedies."

Also Sunday, officials said two Turkish engineers and an Afghan had been kidnapped along the road being build between the capital, Kabul and the city of Kandahar, bringing to five the number of workers abducted in Afghanistan in the last three days.

Taliban attacks have plagued the road construction project. Four workers were killed in August, and de-mining operations along the road were suspended last month after a carjacking. A Turkish engineer was abducted along the road Oct. 30 and released after one month.

The Taliban, whose hard-line Islamic regime was ousted from power in a U.S.-led offensive in late 2001, have stepped up attacks in recent months, targeting foreign aid workers and perceived allies of the coalition.

International aid agencies have reduced operations in Afghanistan's south and east due to escalating violence, including the Nov. 16 drive-by shooting death of a French U.N. aid worker.

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