The US and Nato militaries must stop carrying out airstrikes in densely populated Afghan villages unless intelligence is highly reliable, Human RightsWatch said in a repon Monday that also urged military leaders to accept responsibility' for civilian casualties as soon as possible.

The report comes just two weeks after an Afghan government commission and a preliminary UN repon found that a US-led military operation in the village of Azizabad killed 90 civilians.

The US military' said Sunday it has "new information" about the attack and is sending a senior military officer to the country to review its initial investigation that concluded no more than seven civilians died.

Human RightsWatch said that a small number of ground forces and "overwhelming" air power have become war doctrine for the US in Afghanistan, resulting in a large number of civilian casualties and intense criticism of American conduct by Afghan leaders." In winning the tactical battle quickly on the ground with bombs, US and Nato forces risk losing the strategic battle for the support of the population, essential in counterinsurgency operations," said the report, 'Troops in Contact: Airstrikes and Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan."

Capt. Scott A Miller, a US military spokesman, said he couldn't comment specifically on the report.

I assure you that civilians are never targeted, and that our forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties," Miller said. "It is unfortunate that the enemy continues to hide among non-combatants and place innocent lives at risk."

The US originally said the Aug. 22 operation in Azizabad killed 30 militants, but a military investigation later concluded it killed up to 35 militants and seven civilians. The Nato commander in Afghanistan has proposed a joint UN-US-Afghan government investigation to reconcile the differing figures.

The US military did not say Sunday what new information had emerged. But Afghan and Western officials say Afghanistan's intelligence agency and the UN both have video of the aftermath of the airstrikes on Azizabad village showing dozens of dead women and children.

An Afghan government commission has said 90 civilians, including 60 children and 15 women, died, a finding that the UN backed in its own initial report.

A UN official who has seen one video of Azizabad told The Associated Press it shows maimed children. The official became highly emotional describing rows ofbodies.

A second Western official has said one video shows bodies of "tens of children" lined up and he called the video "gruesome." Tie

two officials spoke on condition they not be identified because the videos had not been publicly released.

In the report released Monday, New York-based Human Rights Watch said that at least 540 Afghan civilians have died in insurgency-related violence this year, including at least 367 killed by insurgents. The group said it used the most conservative estimates of civilian deaths and excluded the Azizabad incident.

An Associated Press tally of civilian deaths this year found that international forces have killed 160 civilians, while insurgent attacks have killed 540. That tally also excludes Azizabad.

Human Rights Watch said its investigation found that civilian casualties rarely occur during planned operations and airstrikes on Taliban targets, but that high numbers of civilian deaths happened in retaliatory strikes after troops were attacked.

It urged the US and Nato militaries to provide accurate information on civilian casualties as soon as possible and to "refrain from denying responsibility for civilian loss" until after-battle investigations occur.

The report also urged the Taliban to stop seeking shelter among populated villages and to stop using civilian homes as cover. The report said Taliban fighters appear to keep innocent civilians captive during fights in the hope that civilian casualties will occur.