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Page last updated at 02:27 GMT, Monday, 8 September 2008 03:27 UK
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US to reopen Afghan attack case
Graves being prepared Azizabad for people killed in last month's attack by US forces
Villagers say up to 90 civilians died in last month's attack by US forces
The US forces in Afghanistan are re-opening an investigation into a US air attack last month which reportedly killed many civilians.
The US military says there is new information about the attack in the western province of Herat.
A United Nations official says video footage of the attack's aftermath shows the bodies of dead children.
For two weeks after the attack, the US said that only seven civilians were killed along with up to 35 militants.
Fresh graves
Video footage from mobile phones showing dozens of dead bodies has given increasing credibility to claims by local residents that up to 90 civilians were killed in the attack.
The footage shows bodies - many of them women and children - lined up in a mosque in the village of Azizabad, which was the subject of a combined ground operation and airstrike by US forces.
Both the Afghan government and the United Nations have already carried out their own investigations into the attack.
They say the video evidence, and the presence of a large number of fresh graves in the village, confirm the accounts of local people.
Until now, the US military has insisted that far fewer civilians died in what it says was a successful operation against Taleban militants in the area.
On Sunday, however, the senior US commander in Afghanistan, David McKiernan, said that in light of new evidence, he had asked for the American investigation to be reopened.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly warned the US and Nato that civilian deaths undermine his government and damages the reputation of foreign forces in the country.
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