11 May 2011 - 19:30

The US-led forces in Afghanistan have killed a young Afghan girl and a policeman in the east of the Asian country nearly two months after the foreign forces took the lives of nine Afghan children, NATO says.

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - According to a NATO statement on Thursday, the US-led troops killed the young girl and the policeman in Nangarhar province's Surkh Rod district on Wednesday during an overnight raid.

According to a neighbor, the girl was only 12 years old.

In May, a US-led airstrike in northeast Afghanistan killed nine children, aged between seven and nine, who were collecting firewood.

Following the May incident, the US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, announced that Washington was “deeply sorry” for the airstrike in the Kunar province of Afghanistan, saying “These deaths should never have happened.”

Thousands of Afghan people have so far lost their lives as a result of military operations by the foreign troops since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai, have repeatedly condemned the attacks and called for an end to foreign troops' strikes on Afghan civilians.

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