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KABUL, Afghanistan — The American military released a scathing report Saturday on the deaths of 23 Afghan civilians earlier this year, saying that “inaccurate and unprofessional” reporting by a team of Predator drone operators helped lead to an inadvertent missile strike on a group of innocent men, women and children.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — An airstrike by Pakistan’s military killed as many as 75 civilians in northwestern Pakistan over the weekend, according to a government official and villagers from the area. A military official confirmed some civilian deaths, but said the toll had been far lower.

And in what would be a scandalous turn to the investigation, The Times of London reported Sunday night that Afghan investigators also determined that American forces not only killed the women but had also “dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath” and then “washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened.”

On Feb. 12 in a village near Gardez, in Paktia Province, Afghan police special forces paired with American Special Operations forces raided a house late at night looking for two Taliban suspects, and instead killed a local police chief and a district prosecutor when they came out, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, to investigate. Three women who came to their aid, according to interviews with family members and friends, were also killed; one was a pregnant mother of 10, the other a pregnant mother of 6.

QALAT, AFGHANISTAN -- A U.S. airstrike targeting a convoy of buses traveling in southern Afghanistan killed at least 27 civilians and wounded a dozen more in a bombing that could fuel a political backlash against the ongoing military offensive in Afghanistan.

Yet, despite the fact that these deaths cause just as much pain to those who love them as do American deaths, TV and the press do not stop in their tracks to examine them, assign blame, and insist on policies to prevent them in the future.

“They gathered eight school students from two compounds and put them in one room and shot them with small arms,” said the delegation’s leader, Asadullah Wafa, a senior adviser to Mr. Karzai and a former governor of Kunar.

“Knowing that we are in no way, shape or form contributing to [civilian suffering] is really a very satisfying place to be,’’ he said.

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — A NATO airstrike on Friday exploded two fuel tankers that had been hijacked by the Taliban, setting off competing claims about how many among the scores of dead were civilians and raising questions about whether the strike violated tightened rules on the use of aerial bombardment.

A few days before the assault, a U.S. helicopter attack mistakenly killed all of the Afghan doctors and nurses from a local clinic, infuriating villagers throughout the area, according to Douglas Cubbison's draft report.