FORWARD OPERATING BASE THUNDER, Afghanistan - NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces killed 60 insurgents near the border with Pakistan, in what was described as the largest insurgent formation crossing the region in six months, the military said Saturday.
Pakistan's army said a rocket fired during the battle hit a house on its territory, killing nine civilians. It denied any insurgents had crossed the frontier.
Faced with growing public anger over civilian casualties elsewhere at the hands of NATO and U.S.-led forces, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said "careless operations" had killed more than 90 civilians in the last 10 days.
He did not comment directly on the border battle, but said "we do not want any more military operations without coordinating them with the Afghan government."
He added: "From now onwards they have to work the way we ask them to work in here."
Extra troops have been deployed on both sides of the mountainous frontier in an attempt to prevent militants who find sanctuary in Pakistan's wild tribal regions from mounting crossborder raids and sustaining the five-year-old war.
NATO said militants attacked Afghan and alliance troops late Friday in the Bermel district of Paktika province. NATO and U.S.-led forces returned fire, killing about 60 fighters, an alliance statement said.
"These individuals clearly had weapons and used them against our aircraft as well as shooting rockets against our positions ... This required their removal from the battle-space," Col. Martin P. Schweitzer, a U.S. commander, said in a statement.
Schweitzer said some munitions fired in the clash might have landed over the border in Pakistan, but insisted his forces only targeted "bad guys."
Pakistan Army spokesman Gen. Waheed Arshad said one of several rockets which landed in Pakistan hit a house and killed nine civilians -- five men, three women and one child.
Arshad said there also were reports of civilians killed on the Afghan side. Several civilians, including women and children, straggled into Pakistan to seek medical attention, he said: "They are not militants. They are not armed, they are civilians who were wounded."
Karzai denounced the Taliban and other militants for killing civilians, but his anger Saturday was mainly directed at NATO and other foreign troops in the country.
"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.
Police said Friday that a NATO airstrike in the southern province of Helmand had killed 25 civilians as well as 20 militants who were firing on NATO and Afghan troops from a walled compound. NATO said the insurgents caused the innocent victims by hiding among them and defended the rights of its troops to defend themselves.
Also in Helmand, an attack on U.S.-led coalition troops left one soldier dead and two others wounded Saturday, the U.S. military said. The nationality of the dead and wounded troops was not disclosed.
In its Saturday statement, NATO said the insurgents that fought in Bermel were the largest formation observed in the area since January, when U.S. forces said they had killed around 130 of 180 insurgents crossing from Pakistan.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Schweitzer, who commands 6,000 troops in eastern Afghanistan, said tribal customs and open border access contribute to the freedom of movement for insurgents.
He said he was "absolutely convinced" that insurgents are trying to create friction between U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan along the border, though he did not say how.
"The enemy would love .... to get us fighting each other, but I am telling you we are becoming more and more one muscle everyday," he said.
Karzai has in the past accused Pakistani intelligence of aiding the Taliban in order to destabilize his government, which some in Pakistan view as too pro-India.
However, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf insists his country is a victim of instability spreading from Afghanistan and that the deployment of 90,000 Pakistani troops on his side of the border has not been matched by Kabul.
U.S. officials have tried to calm tempers among its two key allies, and commanders from all three sides meet regularly to exchange intelligence.
