The Afghan Government Tuesday condemned the killing of up to 17 civilians in a US air strike on a house in remote mountains, as a senior US defence official confirmed the deaths of two Navy Seals who were missing in action in the country's northeast.

The air strike came on Friday in Kunar Province, which borders Pakistan, the same area where a US transport helicopter was downed on June 28 in the deadliest single blow to US forces since they ousted the Taliban in 2001.

"The president is extremely saddened and disturbed," said Jawed Ludin, President Hamid Karzai's chief of staff. "There is no way... the killing of civilians can be justified... It's the terrorists we are fighting. It's not our people who should suffer."

A government team is on its way to the site to investigate the bombing, a Defence Ministry statement said.

Kunar Provincial Governor Asadullah Wafa said that an initial air strike destroyed a house, and as villagers gathered to look at the damage, a US warplane dropped a second bomb on the same target, killing 17 of them, including three women and children.

He said it was unclear who was killed in the initial attack in the tiny village of Chechal. "Maybe some militants were killed, but I don't know," he said. "The 17 people were killed in the second bombing."

The US military said the attack was carried out "with precision-guided munitions that resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of enemy terrorists and non-combatants."

"The targeted compound was a known operating base for terrorist attacks in Kunar Province as well as a base for a medium-level terrorist leader," it said. "Battle damage assessment is currently ongoing."

The statement added that US forces "regret the loss of innocent lives and follow stringent rules of engagement specifically to ensure that non-combatants are safeguarded. However, when enemy forces move their families into the locations where they conduct terrorist operations, they put these innocent civilians at risk."

Meanwhile, two members of the US Navy's elite special forces branch known as Seals who were missing in Kunar Province have been found dead, a senior US defence official in Washington said on Monday night. Another Seal was rescued on Saturday and the fate of a fourth was unknown.

The official who confirmed the recovery of the two bodies spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing effort to account for the missing US servicemen in Afghanistan.

The team was reported missing on June 28. A rescue effort the same day ended in tragedy when the transport helicopter seeking to extract the team was shot down, killing 16 troops aboard.

Plot to block gas pipeline

Meanwhile, Karzai's spokesman said that opponents of the Afghan Government were plotting to block the implementation of a gas transmission project from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan.

"Like opposing other vital projects, the enemies of Afghanistan are making conspiracy to block the implementation of the gas transmission pipeline project," Ludin told reporters at a press conference in Kabul.

These conspiracies, he added, were being implemented by terrorists to derail the economic reconstruction of the war- ravaged nation.

He did not give more details. However, he added that implementation of the giant project would benefit all countries in the region.

The 2,600-kilometer giant project, projected in early last decade, has been hit snag due to persistent instability in Afghanistan and rivalry among the interested regional power.

(China Daily July 6, 2005)