KABUL, Afghanistan -- The US-led coalition, Afghan government and US will launch a probe into last week's raid in a western Afghanistan village where some officials say 90 civilians were killed, a top NATO official said.

The claim of 90 civilian deaths by the Afghan government and UN has caused new friction between President Hamid Karzai and his Western supporters.

But the US-led coalition maintains that 25 militants and five civilians died in their operation August 22 in the village of Azizabad in western Herat province.

An Afghan woman who lost family members weeps after air strikes on Friday in Azizabad district of Shindand August 23, 2008. The Afghan government said the air strikes were by the US-led coalition forces. Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday condemned a US-led coalition air strike his government said killed 90 civilians, most of them women and children. [Agencies]

Evidence from all sides regarding the raid has been scant, with no conclusive photos or video emerging to shed light on what happened in Azizabad.

Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, the chief spokesman for the NATO-led force, said Saturday that the Afghan government, US-led coalition and the US mission have agreed to a joint probe.

"We are hoping to have a quick unfolding of this investigation so we can ... basically reconcile these numbers which are way too far apart right now," Blanchette told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

"It is obviously a case where all three have received different bits of information, and they need to reconcile this," he said. "Obviously, there is somebody that does not have the right information."

Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the US mission in Afghanistan, said details of the investigation were still to be worked out. Afghan government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Karzai has castigated Western military commanders over civilian deaths resulting from their raids. The Taliban and other insurgents use the deaths as leverage to turn Afghans away from the government, he says.

But claims of civilian deaths can be tricky. Relatives of Afghan victims are given condolence payments by Karzai's government and the US military, providing an incentive to make false claims.

Afghan officials say US special forces and Afghan commandos raided the village while hundreds of people were gathered in a large compound for a memorial service honoring a tribal leader, Timor Shah, who was killed eight months ago by a rival clan.

The officials said the operation was based on faulty information provided by Shah's rival.

A top NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the results of the US investigation have not been released, said last week the US and Afghan troops were fired on first when they moved into the village before dawn.

He said combat spanned several hours, during which troops called in airstrikes from Apache helicopters, AC-130 gunships and Predator drones.

The clash destroyed or damaged 15 houses, the official said. Afghan officials give similar accounts of the extent of the damage on the property.