A failure to follow strict rules devised to prevent civilian casualties in Afghanistan led to the death of scores of villagers last month, a US military investigation has concluded.

    According to a senior military official who spoke to the New York Times, the report on the four May raids found that one plane was cleared to attack Taliban fighters, but then had to circle back and did not reconfirm the target before dropping its payload, leaving open the possibility that the militants had fled or that civilians had entered the target area in the intervening few minutes.

    In another case, a compound where militants were massing for a possible counterattack against US and Afghan troops was struck in violation of rules that required a more imminent threat to justify putting homes at risk, the official said.

    "In several instances where there was a legitimate threat, the choice of how to deal with that threat did not comply with the standing rules of engagement," the military official told the Times about the report's initial findings. The inquiry is not yet complete.

    The Afghan government said about 140 civilians were killed in the attacks in the western province of Farah in one of the worst cases of Afghan civilian deaths since the start of the campaign to topple the Taliban in 2001. An earlier US military inquiry put the tally much lower. It said that between 20 and 30 civilians were killed as three aircraft-carrier-based navy F/A-18 strike aircraft and an air force B-1 bomber attacked targets in the village of Granai in a battle that lasted more than seven hours.

    The earlier inquiry also concluded that 60 to 65 Taliban militants had been killed. US military officials said that Taliban fighters had deliberately fired on their forces and aircraft from compounds and other places where they knew Afghan civilians had sought shelter, in order to draw a response that would kill innocent people, including women and children.

    The incident began when Afghan soldiers and police officers went to several villages in response to reports that three Afghan government officials had been killed by the Taliban. The police were quickly overwhelmed and asked for help from US forces.

    Since the raid, US military commanders have once again promised to deal with the problem of civilian casualties, which has been a source of friction between coalition forces and the Afghan government. President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly told the US that civilian deaths from air strikes play into the hands of the Taliban.

    Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, nominated to replace the sacked general, David McKiernan, as the US commander in Afghanistan, said earlier this week that reducing civilian casualties was "essential to our credibility."

    He also told a confirmation hearing before the Senate armed services committee that any US victory would be "hollow and unsustainable" if it led to popular resentment among Afghanistan's citizens.

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