Nato chief visits Bush over Afghanistan

"That's a tragedy, but let me convince you to look at the broader picture," Mr de Hoop Scheffer said today after a meeting at the White House with US President George Bush.

Of the Taliban he said: "They are against democracy. Girls did not go to school when the Taliban was running Afghanistan. Now they go to school. Now there is a president. Now there is a government."

In an Oval Office meeting that lasted about an hour, Mr de Hoop Scheffer and Bush reviewed the alliance's mission in Afghanistan.

Some 32,000 Nato-led troops are serving in the most dangerous areas of the insurgency-wracked nation. Nato expanded its mission this year from the relatively stable north and western parts of the country to far more dangerous areas in the south, where Taliban militia have been most active since a US-led coalition drove them from the seat of power, Kabul, in 2001.

The Red Cross today urged all the parties to the conflict to spare civilians from attacks and respect international humanitarian law.

The ICRC said in a statement that the recent upsurge in violence has given "serious concern regarding the situation of civilians caught in the middle of the fighting".

"Aerial bombardment and ground offensives in populated rural areas, together with recent suicide attacks and roadside bombs in urban areas, have significantly increased the number of innocent civilians killed, injured or displaced," it said.

The neutral agency overseeing the Geneva Conventions said all the fighting parties must "maintain a distinction between fighters and civilians at all times," and prohibit "attacks directed against civilians or civilian objects".

Earlier today, a roadside blast ripped through a pickup truck in southern Afghanistan, killing 14 villagers and wounding three as they travelled to a provincial capital for religious holiday celebrations, an official said.

The explosion in Uruzgan province came as funerals continued in neighbouring Kandahar for some of the dozens of civilians reported killed this week during a Nato military operation against Taliban militants that has deeply angered locals.

Today's blast went off near a village 5 miles west of Tirin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan. Capt. Andre Salloum, a spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force, said it was caused by an anti-tank mine, but it wasn't immediately clear if it was an old mine or newly planted by insurgents.

The victims, from the village of Safid Shar, had been travelling to Tirin Kot to attend a picnic and celebrate the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, said Abdul Qayum Qayumi, the governor's spokesman.

In the southern city of Kandahar, meanwhile, mourners attended a prayer ceremony in memory of some of the several dozen civilians who Afghan officials say were killed during Nato operations on Tuesday in the nearby Panjwayi district.

President Hamid Karzai said "numbers" of civilians were killed but did not say how many. He told a news conference in Kabul that three houses were destroyed, killing most of the people inside.

"Our sadness, our pain, is for the civilians," Mr Karzai said.

He said an investigation being headed by the defence ministry would try to determine why civilians were killed.

"Did the terrorists use the houses of the people?" he asked. "No doubt in the past five years the terrorists, the enemy of Afghanistan, they hid in mosques and people's homes."

Bismallah Afghanmal, a provincial council member, has said that fighters fled into civilian homes, which were then attacked by Nato forces.

Nato said its initial reports found that 12 civilians were killed during three separate incidents, but Afghan officials estimated the number of civilians killed at between 30 and 80, including many women and children.

Mr Karzai has repeatedly condemned civilian deaths caused by Western forces and only a week ago urged Nato to use "maximum caution" in its military operations after nine villagers were killed during another Nato operation in Kandahar.