By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday accused NATO and U.S.-led forces of carelessly killing civilians in recent operations, and suggested the international community considered Afghan lives to be "cheap."

Such operations "will have no benefit for Afghanistan," Karzai said at a news conference.

"Several time in the last year, Afghan government tried to prevent civilian casualties, but our innocent people are becoming victims of careless operations of NATO and international forces," Karzai said in a mixture of English and his native Pashto.

Police said Friday that a NATO airstrike had killed 25 civilians as well as 20 militants who had fired on NATO and Afghan troops from a walled compound in the southern province of Helmand.

NATO said the insurgents caused innocent victims by hiding among civilians, and defended the right of its troops to defend themselves.

However, Karzai said that incident was an example of NATO troops using disproportionate force and exposed a "serious lack of coordination with the Afghan government."

In all, he said 90 civilians had died in foreign-led operations in the past 10 days.

"We want to cooperate with the international community. We are thankful for their help to Afghanistan," Karzai said. "But that does not mean that Afghan lives have no value."

"Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such," he said.

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