A US military commander used "appropriate level of force" during a battle last month in western Afghanistan in which dozens of civilians were reported killed, a senior US military official said Wednesday.
Brigadier General Perry Wiggins defended the actions of the commander on the scene as necessary and appropriate to protect his unit, which came under attack April 27 and 29 in the remote Zerkoh valley in Herat province.
Air strikes were called in by the US special operations forces during the fighting, and Afghan and UN officials later said as many as 50 civilians, including women and children, were killed.
"The on scene commander demonstrated sound judgement throughout the engagement," Wiggins told reporters here.
"All targets were positively identified as hostile, (and) were under observation at the time of the engagement," he said. "The on scene commander used appropriate level of force to respond to the continuous enemy threat and protect his unit."
Wiggins said he did not know whether the US military had established how many, if any, civilians were killed in the fighting.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who protested after the event that civilian casualties had reached "unacceptable levels," visited the Zerkoh valley on Wednesday and told villagers he had told foreign forces to take more care.
The commander of the unit was not identified.
Wiggins, the deputy operations director of the Joint Staff, said the legal findings made no mention of civilian casualties.
The coalition initially denied there had been civilian casualties, saying 136 Taliban fighters were killed. It said later it was investigating.
The legal finding that Wiggins read said coalition ground forces were "continuously engaged by intense enemy fire after entering an area of known Taliban activity."
"On scene commander used all necessary means available and took all appropriate actions necessary to defend his unit," he said.
The commander's assessment of the situation was "consistent with and supported by reliable intelligence from varied sources."
"The thought process that the commanders go through is very calculated, and very methodical. And in this particular case, this commander did that," Wiggins added.
The battle in the Zerkoh valley was the deadliest in a string of recent incidents in which civilians have been reported killed in US air strikes.
On May 9, Afghan officials said 21 civilians were killed by air strikes during fighting in Helmand province in south central Afghanistan.
Analysts attribute the increase to stepped up coalition operations against the Taliban and a reliance on airpower to back up relatively small numbers of ground forces operating in difficult terrain.
But growing anger over civilian casualties has undermined public support for the coalition, and also raised concern among other NATO allies.
Wiggins insisted that US forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and accused the Taliban of deliberately using civilians as human shields.
He showed aerial images of a building that was targeted during fighting May 8 and 9 in Helmand's Sangin district because a senior Taliban commander was believed to be inside. He said the strike was called off when the images showed children near a group of Taliban fighters.
"I want to put up front that the bull's-eye needs to be squarely placed on the Taliban, with regard to these types of civilians at risk," he said.
"The enemy is operating in high concentrations of civilians. They're doing it premeditatively. They are putting civilians as human shields," he said.
