KABUL (AFP) – Seven members of the Afghan security forces were killed in a NATO air strike that also injured international forces in remote western Afghanistan, the Afghan defense ministry said on Saturday.

The Afghan statement comes as NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was investigating an incident in Badghis province Friday in which more than 25 international and Afghan forces were wounded.
Five of the 25 wounded were U.S. soldiers injured in what a Western military official, speaking anonymously, said was friendly fire. Injuries as troops seek lost paratroopers
However, ISAF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Todd Vician, of the U.S. Air Force, told AFP: “We have nothing to confirm friendly fire.”
“No ISAF members were killed,” he said, confirming only that five ISAF soldiers injured in the Badghis incident were Americans.
Investigations into the incident were ongoing and no further details were available, Vician said.
Afghan defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said that the seven Afghan soldiers were killed in the same incident, in Badghis's Bala Murghab district, in which the Americans were injured.
“It was erroneous air strike which caused casualties to friendly forces,” he told AFP.
“We can confirm that four Afghan army soldiers and three police were martyred,” he said.
An earlier statement from the ministry said: “The commando brigade informs U.S. that foreign forces also sustained some casualties.”
The incident is believed to have taken place during a clash involving ISAF and Afghan soldiers searching for two paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division who went missing Wednesday during a routine supply mission.
Local police said a party looking for the two missing soldiers clashed with Taliban and that alliance aircraft were called in to provide support.
The defense ministry made no reference to a clash between the joint forces and Taliban militants.
Police said the casualties occurred when the air strike mistakenly targeted international troops.
The Western military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity told AFP it appeared to be a “blue-on-blue incident,” or friendly fire, with “a huge number of casualties.”
NATO began its search operation in the barren, rugged area together with Afghan forces after the two paratroopers disappeared.
Afghan police said the two had drowned while trying to retrieve cartons of food that had been dropped into a river.
More than 100,000 troops under NATO and U.S. command are in Afghanistan fighting a Taliban insurgency now at its deadliest in the eight years since U.S.-led troops toppled the Islamist regime.
U.S. President Barack Obama is currently considering a request from military commanders to boost troop numbers by up to 40,000, a decision not likely to be made public for a number of weeks.
As public support for the war wanes, Western leaders have criticized the government of President Hamid Karzai -- who was returned to office this week for another five years -- for lack of action on corruption.
But Afghanistan's foreign ministry hit back Saturday, saying comments by the UN special representative, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and others that Karzai must pursue clean government policies were disrespectful.
“Over the last few days some political and diplomatic circles and propaganda agencies of certain foreign countries have intervened in Afghanistan's internal affairs by issuing instructions concerning the composition of Afghan government organs and political policy,” it said.
“Such instructions have violated respect for Afghanistan's national sovereignty.”
Separately, the Afghan army said a five-day operation that ended on Friday in northern Kunduz province had resulted in the deaths of 133 militants.
The Afghan army also said at least three Afghan soldiers and more than a dozen Taliban militants were killed on Saturday in southern Afghanistan.
An Afghan army convoy was struck by a roadside bomb in Girishk district of troubled Helmand province killing three Afghan troopers, southern military corps commander General Shair Mohammad Zazai told AFP.
In neighbouring Zabul province a joint operation by Afghan and foreign forces in Naw Bahar district killed 18 Taliban fighters, he said.
As Taliban activity across Afghanistan intensifies, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said about 200 UN expatriate staff would be temporarily relocated outside Afghanistan in the wake of a deadly rebel attack on a guesthouse on October 28 which killed five UN workers.
UN officials said another 400 expatriates were being relocated to safer sites within Afghanistan.