KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – Hamid Karzai became president in Afghanistan virtually at the insistence of the United States after it chased the Taliban and al-Qaida into southern desert wastes and the mountain strongholds to the northeast.

American bodyguards protect him. U.S. funds keep his government afloat.

Yet, despite charges by his critics that he is an American puppet, Karzai has a breaking point: the mistaken killing of Afghan civilians – women and children especially – in U.S. airstrikes.

That happened again when as many as 17 civilians died in the remote Kunar Province last week, and Karzai responded Tuesday with criticism as rare as it was stinging.

A government spokesman said there could be no justification for the civilian deaths and reminded the United States: “It’s the terrorists we are fighting. It’s not our people who should suffer.”

The United States said the airstrike targeted a known terrorist base, but expressed regret for the civilian deaths, which it called a “very unfortunate situation.”

Both countries vowed to investigate further.

U.S. forces, meanwhile, spent an eighth day scouring mountains in Kunar province bordering Pakistan, searching for the final member of an elite four-man Navy SEAL commando team that went missing June 28.

One SEAL has been rescued, while the bodies of two others were recovered Monday in Kunar province and taken to the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, at Bagram, a U.S. military statement said. A transport helicopter sent in to rescue the four was shot down the day the team went missing, killing all 16 U.S. servicemen aboard.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O’Hara said rescuers searching for the final missing team member were “still hopeful,” adding, “until you know otherwise, you have to assume he is alive.”

A U.S. military statement said the sole rescued serviceman was receiving medical treatment for “non-life-threatening injuries” at the Bagram base.

The air strike Friday that killed civilians targeted a house in the same area. The number of people killed was still unclear, but “roughly half” may have been civilians, while the rest were Taliban or al-Qaida fighters, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Tuesday.

“It’s obviously a very unfortunate situation,” Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said later at a news conference.

“We take great strides to be precise in our military activities,” DiRita said. “I think we’ve been very precise. But these things do occur and we obviously regret when they do. And we’ll investigate to be able to determine what may have happened and how it can be avoided in the future.”

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack echoed those remarks.

“We deeply regret any loss of civilian life in the course of military actions,” McCormack said. “Our military is second to none in the care that it takes to target those who are fighting against our U.S. forces and avoid any civilian casualties or collateral damage.”

U.S. forces described the house as “a known operating base for terrorist attacks … as well as a base for a medium-level terrorist leader.”

But Jawed Ludin, Karzai’s chief of staff, said “there is no way … the killing of civilians can be justified.”

“The president is extremely saddened and disturbed,” he said. “It’s the terrorists we are fighting. It’s not our people who should suffer.”

A government team is on its way to the site to probe the bombing, a Defense Ministry statement said. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said its investigators were already there collecting victims’ names.

An initial U.S. air strike destroyed a house, and as villagers gathered to look at the damage, a U.S. warplane dropped a second bomb on the same target, killing 17 people, including three women and children, Kunar provincial Gov. Asadullah Wafa said.

He said it was unclear who was killed in the initial attack on the tiny village of Chechal.

The U.S. military said in a statement that the attack “resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of enemy terrorists and noncombatants.” U.S. forces “regret the loss of innocent lives and follow stringent rules of engagement specifically to ensure that noncombatants are safeguarded,” the statement said.

It suggested some victims were the militants’ relatives and said, “when enemy forces move their families into the locations where they conduct terrorist operations, they put these innocent civilians at risk.”

An official with the Afghan human rights group warned the killings will “damage America’s image here and public support for the war on terror.”

“It undermines all the good work the Americans have done in Afghanistan over the past three years,” said Ahmad Nader Nadery.

Several U.S. attacks since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 have resulted in civilian casualties, according to Afghan officials.

These include:

• July 2002: 48 killed and 117 wounded in an airstrike on a wedding party in Uruzgan province.

• April 2003: 11 killed when a U.S. warplane mistakenly bombed a home in Shkin.

• September 2003: Nine nomads killed when a U.S. helicopter attacked a tent in the desert in Naubahar district.

• January 2004: 10 killed in an airstrike on a village in Uruzgan.