At least seven civilians have been killed in a new US bombing in northwestern Afghanistan. The attack comes just one day after reports emerged of massive casualties in another US attack to the south. Today’s killings came after US forces reportedly came under fire in Baghis province. Meanwhile, estimates of the death toll from the earlier US attack in Kandahar are ranging from thirty to ninety civilians. The victims were bombed while attending a wedding in the village of Shah Wali Kot. One resident said thirty-seven people were killed.

Afghan resident: “In this air strike, thirty-seven people have died and thirty-five more wounded, most of them women and children.”

The Pentagon has admitted causing civilian casualties. It says US forces attacked after coming under fire from nearby Taliban militants. At a news conference, Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed President-elect Barack Obama’s election with an appeal to reduce the ongoing US attacks on Afghan civilians.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai: “As we speak today, we again had civilian causalities. Yesterday, in Shah Wali Kot of Kandahar, we had civilian casualties caused by an air strike. A few days ago, we had civilian causalities in Helmand. And a few days before that, there were civilian causalities in Wardak province. The civilian casualties must be ended in Afghanistan. My first demand from the newly elected president of America when he takes office is to end the civilian causalities in Afghanistan and take the war to the safe havens and training camps of terrorism.”

Obama has pledged to escalate the US occupation of Afghanistan. Last month, at least twenty-five people were killed in a NATO air strike on the town of Lashkar Gah. That attack came less than two months after another US strike killed up to ninety Afghan civilians, sixty of them children.