NATO forces abandon Afghanistan outpost
Updated
NATO-led forces in Afghanistan have abandoned a remote outpost in the north east of the country where militants killed nine American soldiers on Sunday.
But NATO spokesman, Mark Laity, says the international forces will continue to maintain a strong presence in the region where the Taliban has been increasingly active.
"It is quite common for them to attack our combat outposts, but this was a larger scale attack than normal," he said.
"So I'm not sure I would call it a new tactic, but it's not one that they've been using a lot, and one of the reasons is that they usually get defeated.
"Once we had repelled them from the base, the use of airpower obviously inflicted heavy casualties on them."
Meanwhille, the US-led coalition in Afghanistan has admitted to killing eight civilians during an air strike against militants on Tuesday.
The coalition says a house in the volatile Bakwa district was hit by airpower after one of its convoy on routine patrol came under heavy attack from several homes.
The coalition has expressed regret and says the civilians' deaths were not intentional.
