Many of the casualties in the Friday night raid on a village in Charcheno district were women and children, said a local government official, who did not want to be identified.

A local police officer, who also did not want to named, said six people had died and seven had been injured.

US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Bryan Hilferty said he was unaware of any civilian casualties.

He said US planes had pounded suspected Taliban positions in the area on Friday morning in retaliation for the killing of two US soldiers on Thursday, and not on Friday night.

"I have no knowledge of this," he told Reuters. "We dropped some bombs on Taliban positions yesterday morning not last night."

Hilferty said on Friday the air strikes against suspected Taliban positions were launched after two US soldiers and at least five militants were killed in a clash the previous day.

He said US and Afghan National Army soldiers came under fire on Thursday while on patrol in a village in Uruzgan's Tarin Kot district.

The incidents came amid a stepped up hunt by US-led forces for Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, including Osama bin Laden, in southern and eastern Afghanistan launched on March 7 and codenamed "Mountain Storm."

The United States has been criticized by many Afghans and rights groups for inflicting civilian casualties in its war in pursuit of Taliban, al-Qaeda and allied fighters launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

The United Nations has called for details of investigations into such incidents to be made public.

AFP adds: US and Afghan forces repelled a major attack on a base on the Afghan-Pakistan border, leaving at least three suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters dead, an Afghan military commander said yesterday.

Afghan Militia Force commander Zakim Khan said the militants had fled from the Pakistani tribal belt where the military has launched a major operation to hunt down al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives, cornering up to 400 fighters.

"This group had came from Pakistan and fled back to Pakistan after the fighting," he said. "Three al-Qaeda fighters were killed and we believe seven to eight of them were wounded."