The U.S. military has now admitted it has killed a total of 15 Afghan children during a series of recent raids in eastern Afghanistan. On Saturday the military announced the deaths of nine children in the province of Ghazni. But now the military says it also mistakenly killed six children in the nearby city of Gardez. The deaths came as part of a massive new air assault dubbed “Operation Avalanche.” The BBC reports the US were attempting to assassinate a suspected militant, Mullah Jilani, who the US believed was staying in the compound where the six children died. The killings come in the same week that the New Yorker magazine and Guardian newspaper are reporting that the U.S. has set up top secret assassination squads to kill in Iraq and Afghanistan. The BBC reports that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the aggressive pursuit of wanted men in Afghanistan, saying the Pentagon is equally happy to capture or kill them.