Amid tensions with NATO over killing civilians, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is due in Italy for one-day visit to “discuss closer ties”.

Amid tensions with NATO over killing civilians, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is due in Italy for one-day visit to “discuss closer ties”.

Karzai left his country on Wednesday, and he would hold talks with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a statement from his office said, adding he would also attend a ceremony marking the anniversary of Italian unification.

Nearly 4,000 Italian occupation troops are in Afghanistan as part of the 130,000 US-led international forces.

The visit comes a day after the Afghan president furiously criticized NATO-led military operations which killed civilians, warning that it risked becoming an occupying force if fatal air strikes continued.
On Sunday Karzai had issued a "last warning" to foreign occupation forces over civilian casualties, following the killing of at least 14 Afghans in an air strike in the southern province of Helmand.

NATO however claimed the death toll was nine, and has “apologized” while saying the strike was carried out after “insurgents hid in a compound and carried on firing”.