An AP photographer who visited Azizabad on Saturday said he saw at least 20 graves, including some graves with multiple bodies in them. He said he saw around 20 houses that had been destroyed.

An Afghan policeman is seen inside a destroyed house whom the Afghan government said was bombed by US-led coalition forces on Friday in Afghanistan August 23, 2008. Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday condemned a US-led coalition air strike his government says killed 78 civilians, most of them women and children. [Agencies]

Originally the US coalition said the battle killed 30 militants, including a wanted Taliban commander, but US coalition spokeswoman Rumi Nielson-Green said Saturday that five civilians, two women and three children connected to the militants, were among the dead.

The US said it would investigate.

"Obviously there's allegations and a disconnect here. The sooner we can get that cleared up and get it official, the better off we'll all be," said US coalition spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry. "We had people on the ground."

The competing claims by the US coalition and the two Afghan ministries were impossible to verify because of the remote and dangerous location of the battle site.

Complicating the matter, Afghan officials are known to exaggerate civilian death claims for political payback, to qualify for more compensation money from the US or because of pressure from the Taliban.

Still, the US has killed dozens of civilians in past strikes even though it first denied any civilians had been hit.

In early July, US bombs killed 47 civilians walking to a wedding party in Nuristan province, according to the findings of a government commission.

The US military originally said it believed only combatants had been killed, and suggested that reports of civilians deaths were based on propaganda from militants. The US later acknowledged that there may have been civilian casualties but never gave a specific number.