Nato and US-led forces killed 60 insurgents near the border with Pakistan, in what the military described today as the largest group of insurgents crossing the region in six months.
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 at the hands of Nato and US-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 co-ordinating 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 cross-border raids and sustaining the five-year-old war.
Other fighting reported today by the US-led coalition left some 20 militants and one coalition soldier dead. The soldier, who died in a firefight in the southern province of Helmand, was not further identified.
Nato said the border battle began late on Friday when militants attacked Afghan and alliance troops in the Bermel district of Paktika province. Nato and US-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," said Colonel Martin P. Schweitzer, a US commander.
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 General Waheed Arshad said one of several rockets that 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 men, 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 was mainly directed at Nato and other foreign troops in the country.
The Afghan leader has repeatedly called for closer co-ordination, saying it could help reduce civilian deaths. But Nato or US forces continue to make up for their sometimes limited numbers by calling in devastating aerial firepower.
"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 on Friday a Nato airstrike in the southern province of Helmand 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 deaths by hiding among civilians and defended the rights of its troops to defend themselves.
Nato said the insurgents that fought in Bermel were the largest formation observed in the area since January, when US forces said they had killed about 130 of 180 insurgents crossing from Pakistan.
AP