In a video obtained yesterday by Associated Press Television News, villagers are seen wrapping the bodies of some of the victims in blankets and lining them up on the dusty ground.
In one shot, two children are lifted from a blanket with another adult already in it. The children's faces are blackened, and parts of their tunics are soaked in what appears to be dried blood.
Their limp bodies are then put on the ground, wrapped in another cloth, and placed next to the other bodies. It was not clear how many bodies were in the room where the video was shot.
The man who shot the video said many of the bodies he filmed Tuesday in Gerani were in pieces. He spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from security agencies.
It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the video. The International Committee of the Red Cross also has said that women and children were among the dozens of bodies its teams saw in the two villages.
On Thursday, a local official said he collected from residents the names of 147 people killed in the fighting. If true, it would be the deadliest case of civilian casualties in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime.
Villagers "were pointing to graves and saying, 'This is my son, this is my daughter,' " said Abdul Basir Khan, a member of Farah's provincial council.
The US military described that toll as over the top.
"The investigators and the folks on the ground think that those numbers are extremely over-exaggerated," US military spokeswoman Captain Elizabeth Mathias said. "We are definitely nowhere near those estimates."
While past reports of civilian deaths at the hands of international forces drew immediate outcries from President Hamid Karzai's government, this time the response has been muted. The most vehement reaction has come from opposition lawmakers, who demanded an agreement regulating the operations of foreign troops.
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