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(AP)

A crowd of about 300 villagers yelled "Death to the United States" and blocked a main road in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday as they swore that U.S. forces had killed three innocent villagers, officials said.

NATO forces rejected the claim, saying they had killed several suspected insurgents and detained a local Taliban commander in the overnight raid.

The gulf between the two accounts is a reminder of how sensitive every NATO operation in Afghanistan has become. In Taliban-heavy areas it is hard to distinguish villagers from insurgents and sometimes public opinion turns against coalition forces even when they say they are certain they targeted the correct people.

And while NATO has drastically reduced the civilian deaths it causes, the military coalition still makes mistakes. During a clash in southern Helmand province Wednesday, coalition forces mistakenly killed an Afghan woman as they fired back at insurgents, NATO said in a statement.

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