Afghan ground forces will be barred from calling in NATO air strikes after an attack killed a number of children this week, President Hamid Karzai said Saturday.

"I issue a decree, from tomorrow none of the Afghan forces are allowed to ask for foreign air support under any conditions," he said in an address to young officers at a military academy in Kabul.

"Our forces ask for air support from foreigners and children get killed in an air strike," he said.

This was apparently a reference to an attack during an overnight raid by combined Afghan and NATO ground forces on a Taliban hideout in a remote eastern region on Wednesday.

Initial reports said 10 civilians, including five children and four women, were killed when the air strike was called in.

Three Taliban commanders, including a notorious Al-Qaeda-linked militant leader called Shahpoor, were also killed in the raid, Afghan officials said.