The alliance said it was investigating claims that civilians had died following the airstrike on Thursday against militants who were attacking a military outpost in the restive province of Kunar, which borders Pakistan.

Provincial police chief Khalilullah Ziayee said that children were collecting scrap metal on the mountain when NATO aircraft dropped bombs to disperse Taleban fighters attacking a nearby base.

“In the bombardment six children, aged six to 12, were killed. Another child was injured,” the police commander said.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), NATO’s US-led mission in Afghanistan, said it was investigating the allegations.

Separately, homemade bombs killed three US troops in southern and eastern Afghanistan on Friday, and a roadside blast tore through a crowded market in the increasingly volatile north, killing three police and two civilians. No other details about the attacks on the US troops were given by NATO and the identities of those killed were not immediately released.

A total of 55 foreign troops have been killed in Afghanistan this month, including 35 Americans, according to a count by The Associated Press. July was the deadliest month for US forces in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion, with 66 killed.
 

A former US official says the CIA has multiple members of the Afghan government on its payroll.

The official on Friday confirmed reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post that the agency has cultivated intelligence sources across the Afghan government, in order to track various factions within the Afghan government.

The New York Times reported that the agency is paying Mohammed Zia Salehi, the chief of administration for Afghanistan’s National Security Council, for information.