Solemn remembrance scenes in Afghanistan took on an extra poignancy yesterday as NATO launched an investigation into one of the worst ‘friendly fire’ incidents of the eight-year war.

These British soldiers were taking part in a Remembrance Sunday ceremony at a military base in Kandahar - a ceremony that came just two days after seven soldiers and police officers were killed in what officials have now called a mis-targeted NATO air strike.

The deaths occurred while NATO and Afghan forces clashed with Taliban insurgents while  searching for two missing American paratroopers in a barren, rugged area.

Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said: “We and NATO are investigating the incident.”

Azimi said that four Afghan soldiers and three Afghan police officers were killed in the air strike, which was called in to help troops fighting rebels in
the remote Badghis province of western Afghanistan.

“We know that they were killed in the air strike. We’re currently investigating the incident to find out why they were hit so that such incidents can be prevented in the future,” he added.

If proven, Friday’s incident will have been one of the deadliest of its kind.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said its personnel and Afghan forces had been “engaged by enemy forces”, meaning the Taliban, while searching for two soldiers who went missing on Wednesday while trying to recover airdropped supplies from a river.

The ISAF said 25 troops were “killed or wounded during a joint operation that involved multiple engagements over several hours”. Five of the wounded troops were US soldiers.

The investigation comes as a poll released yesterday said support among the British public for the war in Afghanistan was falling, while more than 40 per cent of those polled did not understand why troops are fighting there.

The data comes just days after five British soldiers died when a “rogue” Afghan policeman attacked a checkpoint in Helmand.