Kabul  - Afghan civilians will bear the brunt of a massive US expansion of forces in the country, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned on Monday.

US President Barack Obama has announced the deployment of some 17,000 extra troops for Afghanistan, to top up more than 70,000 international forces already stationed in the war-wracked country.

Afghan civilians "will bear the brunt of the announced escalation and that the consequences for many will be dire in the extreme," Pierre Krahenbuhl, director of operations for the ICRC told reporters.

He called on all sides in Afghanistan do more to protect the local population.

Meanwhile, a joint Afghan-NATO inquiry found that eight Afghan civilians were killed in their recent fight with the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

"If the way in which the fighting has been taking place on all of the sides with the impact on civilians would continue in this fashion then we are very worried about additional serious problems for the civilians," Krahenbuhl said.

Krahenbuhl, who was speaking at the end of his six-day tour of the country, said the ICRC was worried because the conflict "has never been as acute, especially the impact for civilians, as serious as now."

He said the ICRC had passed on those concerns about civilian casualties to representatives from the Taliban, and the US and NATO.

More than 2,000 civilians were killed in the conflict last year - with nearly 40 per cent of those killed by Afghan and international forces and 55 per cent died at the hands of Taliban-led insurgents, according to the United Nations.

The mounting death toll has become the main reason for friction between Kabul and Washington, as President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly accused US and NATO forces of being careless in their anti-Taliban operations that often result in civilian deaths.

Meanwhile, a joint inquiry by Afghan and NATO-led forces in the southern province of Helmand found that eight civilians had been killed in a fight by pro-government and NATO forces against Taliban militants.

Seventeen other civilians were wounded in the February 23 firefight which erupted after a convoy of NATO forces was ambushed in Sangin district of the province.

NATO said in a statement that it "regrets any incident when they cause civilian casualties and will continue to work hard to try and stop this kind of incident taking place." NATO added that it would compensate the victims. dpa