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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5003478.stm
Dozens of people are reported to have been killed after US-led coalition forces launched a raid on a village in southern Afghanistan.
A US military spokesman says they believe up to 50 Taleban have been killed in the attack.
But a BBC correspondent has received reports that 30 civilians were killed in the attack and 50 others injured, including children.
The US-led troops said they had no reports of civilian casualties.
'Homes were bombed'
The attack was launched in Kandahar's Panjwayi district where Taleban clashed with Afghan security forces last week.
Eyewitnesses and local doctors say children were among those injured in the US air strike.
A BBC reporter who visited a local hospital spoke to villagers who had been injured in the attack.
One said Taleban fighters had taken control of his house to launch missile attacks from the roof, and that many of his family members had died in the bombing raid.
"They started to bomb our village at midnight and continued up to this morning," another eyewitness, Attah Mohammad, told AFP.
Another man said Taleban fighters had taken refuge at a local madrassa [Islamic religious school] after the recent fighting.
"Helicopters bombed the madrassa and some of the Taleban ran from there and into people's homes," Haji Ikhlaf told the Associated Press.
"Then those homes were bombed."
US-led forces have sealed off the area and are carrying out an investigation.
The BBC's Alastair Leithead says Panjwayi is a known stronghold of the Taleban and a number of high-ranking Taleban commanders had recently been captured there.
The US-led coalition in Afghanistan said the purpose of the operation was "to detain individuals suspected of terrorist and anti-Afghanistan activities".
"These individuals were active members of the Taleban network and have conducted attacks against coalition and Afghan forces as well as civilians," it said in a statement.
Violence escalates
There has been a dramatic upsurge in fighting in southern Afghanistan over the past week.
Officials estimate up to 200 rebels have been killed in the region since last Wednesday, in some of the fiercest fighting since the fall of the Taleban in late 2001.
On Sunday, a suicide car bomb attack apparently targeting a US military convoy killed three people in Kabul - the driver and two civilians.
Our correspondent said it was the first suicide attack in the capital this year.