September 4, 2009 - A NATO airstrike before dawn on Friday killed 80 people or more, at least some of them civilians, in a once-calm region of northern Afghanistan that has recently slipped under control of insurgents, Afghan officials said.

NATO officials acknowledged that coalition aircraft had destroyed two hijacked fuel tankers in the tiny village of Omar Kheil, 15 miles south of Kunduz. They said they were investigating reports of civilian deaths, but stressed that the attack was aimed at Taliban militants.

German forces in northern Afghanistan under NATO command called in the attack, news services reported. Afghan officials said that the strike had killed insurgents as well as civilians who had surrounded the trucks and were siphoning fuel when the strike occurred. There were differing accounts of how many civilians were killed.

The village, which is on the border of the districts of Ali Abad and Char Dara, is controlled by Taliban commanders, said the Ali Abad governor, Haji Habibullah. Putting the toll at "80 to 90," he said, "Some of them were civilians and some of them were Taliban fighters."

But public health officer for Kunduz Province, Dr. Azizullah Safar, said a medical team sent to the village reported that 80 people had been killed, and that "most of them were civilians and villagers."

It was clear that some of the dead were militants, he said, noting that the site was scattered with remnants of ammunition vests and other gear carried by insurgents.

Mahboubullah Sayedi, a spokesman for the Kunduz provincial governor, also said 90 people were killed, but according to him, most were insurgents.

Mr. Sayedi said some civilians had come to get fuel, and other civilians who turned out were sympathetic to the Taliban. In addition, he said, there were reports from the scene that 40 to 50 charred pieces of Kalashnikov rifles were also found, suggesting that many of the dead were insurgents.

A statement issued by the office of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, said he was "deeply saddened" and had sent a delegation to investigate. "Targeting civilian men and women is not acceptable," the statement added.

Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, the NATO-led military alliance that is commanded by an American, said officials were investigating reports of civilian casualties. "While the airstrike was clearly directed at the insurgents, I.S.A.F. will do whatever is necessary to help the community including medical assistance and evacuation as requested," General Tremblay said in a statement.

The episode began late Thursday when a gang of Taliban guerrillas hijacked the two diesel trucks on the main highway south of Kunduz, Afghan and NATO officials said, and drove the trucks to Omar Kheil. But when they came to a river the trucks could not cross, they stopped and told villagers to siphon off the diesel, and scores turned out, Afghan officials said.

The air attack exploded the tankers, and people close to the trucks were blown to bits. Some of those farther away died from severe burns, said the police chief of Kunduz Province, Gen. Razaq Yaqoobi.

At the main hospital in Kunduz, General Yaqoobi said, he saw a dozen badly burned men in their twenties and thirties. Local people said they did not believe them men were from the area.

A spokesman for the Taliban in Afghanistan, Zabihullah Mujahid, took responsibility for the hijackings and claimed that the casualties were all civilians. He said that when the trucks couldn't cross the river, the Taliban decided to bleed some of the fuel from the tanks, but when local villagers found out, hundreds rushed to collect the fuel.

An I.S.A.F. press officer said that on Thursday night an Afghan command center in Kunduz reported that two fuel trucks had been stolen by insurgents. A few hours later, coalition forces saw the two trucks on the banks of the Kunduz River, said the press officer, Lt. Cmdr. Sam Truelove of the British Royal Navy.

"After assessing that only insurgents were in the area, the local I.S.A.F. commander ordered an airstrike, which destroyed the fuel trucks, and a large number of insurgents were reportedly killed and injured," Commander Truelove said. "I.S.A.F. has received information that civilians were killed and injured in this attack, and in conjunction with Afghan officials are currently conducting an investigation."

The Kunduz area is patrolled mainly by NATO's 4,000 strong German contingent, barred by Berlin from operating in combat zones further south. The Afghanistan mission is deeply unpopular in Germany, and there were concerns that this episode might deepen resistance if a high number of civilian casualties were confirmed.

The overall commander of the NATO force is an American, General Stanley M. McChrystal, though individual nations retain command control over their own forces. The United States has 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, more than any other nation; other nations have about 40,000 troops there combined. Germany confirmed that its commander in the area gave approval for the aircraft to open fire, The Associated Press reported. A Defense Ministry spokesman in Berlin said it believed more than 50 fighters were killed and had no information about deaths of civilians.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called for a "prompt and urgent investigation."

"It is a vital time for NATO and Afghanistan's people to come together," he told SKY news. "We have a very strong NATO commitment, we need a strong Afghan commitment and obviously incidents like this can only undermine that."

General McChrystal, who took command in June, has said would sharply restrict the use of airstrikes here, in an effort to reduce the civilian deaths that he said were undermining the American-led mission by creating anger and opposition among Afghans.

In interviews shortly after he took command, he said the use of airstrikes during firefights would in most cases be allowed only to prevent American and other coalition troops from being overrun.

Even in the case of active firefights with Taliban forces, he said, airstrikes will be limited if the combat is taking place in populated areas - the very circumstances in which most Afghan civilian deaths have occurred. The restrictions will be especially tight in attacking houses and compounds where insurgents are believed to have taken cover. It was initially unclear if Friday's airstrike met these conditions.

"Air power contains the seeds of our own destruction if we do not use it responsibly," General McChrystal told a group of his senior officers during a video conference in June. "We can lose this fight."

The New York Times