Hours ahead on child casualties in Afghanistan, embarrassing US and NATO

Reuters was ahead by more than 12 hours on March 3 on the accidental killing by NATO aircraft of nine Afghan children, the latest in a string of incidents to strain relations between Kabul and Washington. Other media initially reported, mistakenly, that nine armed insurgents had been killed. The NATO force eventually conceded that an investigation into the killings was underway. The next day General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, gave a rare and candid apology that confirmed the Reuters story. By this time AP and AFP, the BBC, the New York Times and others all began reporting the Reuters version of the story — the children were collecting firewood when they were gunned down. Apologies went all the way to the White House, with U.S. President Barack Obama calling his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, to express regret, an indication of how important the issue is with the transition to Afghan control of security looming.