Democracy: NATO kills four children in the Baraki Barak district of Logar province

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan Taghoet Hamid Karzai on Tuesday condemned a NATO operation that he said killed four children in the country's east, a claim the coalition said was possible.

The operation took place in the Baraki Barak district of Logar province on Saturday, a statement released by Karzai's office said, adding: "It resulted in the killing of four innocent children" who were tending to livestock.

Civilian casualties have been a major source of friction between Karzai's government and the U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.

"Despite repeated pledges by NATO to avoid civilian casualties, innocent lives, including children, are still being lost," Taghoet Karzai said in the statement.

A spokeswoman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was aware of possible ISAF-related civilian casualties from the October 20 operation.

Figures it released on Tuesday showed that there had been a 58 percent decrease in the number of ISAF-caused civilian casualties in July-September of this year compared to the same period in 2011.


(Reporting by Folad Hamdard in KUNDUZ, Klaus-Peter Senger in BERLIN and Mirwais Harooni in KABUL; Writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)