Violence is at its worst in Afghanistan since US-backed Afghan forces ousted the Taleban in 2001 after the Sept. 11 Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, with record civilian and military casualties.

Almost 700 foreign soldiers have been killed in 2010, but it is Afghan civilians who bear the brunt of the conflict as insurgents expand from traditional strongholds into once peaceful areas in the north and west.

About 1,270 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2010, UN figures show, up 21 percent from the beginning of 2009.

A roadside bomb killed 14 civilians and injured four when it blew up a minibus in western Afghanistan, a government official said, adding that the victims may have been part of an extended family going to an engagement party. President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack.

Overnight, four Afghan soldiers in Musa Qala district in the southern province of Helmand were killed by a US airstrike, Defense Ministry spokesman Zaher Azimy said.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, said it had reports of the Afghan deaths and that a team was investigating the incident.

The attacks came days after a bomb killed 15 people in the south and six Afghan soldiers were killed in separate NATO airstrikes targeting insurgents.

Civilian casualties caused by foreign troops and mistaken killings of Afghan security forces have been a frequent source of friction between Karzai’s government and his Western backers.

On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned of worsening violence in Afghanistan in 2011 and said reaching Afghans who needed help was harder now than it had been at any time in the past 30 years.