The US military did kill six children in a US air raid in eastern Afghanistan last weekend, a military spokesman confirmed, the second such attack within 24 hours in which children died. US soldiers discovered the bodies Saturday after aircraft and ground troops launched an attack Friday night against a compound east of Gardez town, Paktia province, where Taliban militant Mullah Jilani was believed to be holding out. "After we went there we discovered the bodies of two adults and six children under a collapsed wall," Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty told reporters in Kabul. Jilani was not captured in the raid. Hilferty said he did not know what had caused the wall to collapse! "I don't know what caused the collapse of the wall because although we fired on the compound there were other explosions inside the compound," he said. The US military admitted Sunday it mistakenly killed nine children in an air attack Saturday against another suspected militant in neighbouring Ghazni province. That militant also got away. Hilferty said the troops in the Friday night Paktia assault had come under attack. US forces attacked the compound from the air and ground and captured nine suspected militants during the operation. "We took nine suspected anti-coalition forces under our custody that night," he said, adding that Jilani was not among them. "I don't know if he escaped," Hilferty said. Some 11,500 US troops are hunting down Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, mainly along the rugged border with Pakistan. **PHOTO CAPTION*** An unidentified German soldier from the International Security Assistance Force talks to an Afghan boy during a patrol in Kabul, December 9, 2003. (REUTERS/Ahmad Masood)