Several hundred civilians are believed to have been killed by international soldiers fighting the insurgents but no official figure has been released.

President Hamid Karzai has often demanded troops take more care and rights groups have accused them of using "disproportionate force."

"Civilian casualties are never entirely avoidable but we have done a lot, since we also saw too many civilian casualties, in adapting and changing our procedures," Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after talks with Karzai.

"Every time I meet the president, we discuss civilian casualties because, like the president, I and the NATO allies suffer each innocent civilian Afghan killed," he told reporters.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force is made up of more than 40,000 soldiers from 37 countries. They work alongside a US-led coalition, also accused of harming civilians in anti-Taliban operations.

Most of the casualties are in air raids, but many occur when soldiers open fire on people who do not obey warnings to keep away from military convoys.

The issue is one of the most sensitive of the international campaign against the Taliban, who are trying to take back power after being removed from government in 2001, and has angered Afghans.

Casualties -- which are often difficult to verify with officials releasing conflicting statements -- have on several occasions led angry mobs to protest, as well as drawing sharp criticism from Karzai and the parliament.

Scheffer said NATO forces never intentionally killed civilians, unlike the insurgents.

"I see scores of innocent civilians being killed by the spoilers, by Taliban indiscriminately killing innocent civilians in their reign of terror," he said.

NATO and Afghan authorities have often accused Taliban of using ordinary people as "human shields" by taking cover in compounds.

The insurgency has intensified, with more than 5,000 people estimated to have been killed this year -- most of them rebel fighters.

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