Afghan baby died in digger combat

Australian soldiers were not to blame for the death of a baby possibly killed by grenade concussion during a battle with Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, a defence inquiry says.

Taliban fighters would have known of the risk to the baby when they engaged the Australians in the November 23, 2007, battle in which Australian soldier Luke Worsley and a teenage girl were also killed, the investigation found.

The inquiry report was one of three released by the acting chief of defence Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie on Monday.

The baby appeared to have been in a room of a mud hut from which a male and a female combatant, firing AK-47s, engaged Australian troops.

Lt Gen Gillespie said Australian soldiers found the baby crying, but with no obvious wound, when they cleared a room where combat had taken place and moved the child out of harm's way.

"But when they came back to do the final clearance of the building before they left it was clear the baby had died."

The baby's cause of death could not be confirmed because the body was buried quickly in accordance with Afghan custom.

"Having regard to the lack of apparent external injuries one could speculate that concussion from grenades may have caused internal injuries that led to death," inquiry head Colonel Peter Short wrote.

"While obviously extremely regrettable that a baby should die in combat, I find that the actions of those people engaging the Australian forces ... were deliberate with the almost certain knowledge that the baby was in that area."

Col Short said the use of grenades by Australians was "justified".

He did not suggest the possible concussion-related death of the baby was caused by Australian grenades.

A second civilian killed was a teenage girl who was in a room from which a machine gun had fired on Australian troops.

The inquiry into the civilian deaths also addressed complaints made by captured Taliban insurgents.

Taliban prisoners made a later disproved allegation that Australians had set dogs on them.

The complaint was made to Dutch soldiers in the International Security Assistance Force.

"The trend would be rather to complain to the Dutch that Australians had mistreated detainees before they were handed over or complain to the Australians that the Dutch had mistreated (them)," Lt Gen Gillespie said.

"That happens throughout the country."

Lt Gen Gillespie admitted the tactic used valuable time and staff, but he was adamant all allegations of prisoner-of-war mistreatment would be thoroughly investigated.

The possibility of posthumous recognition of Private Worsley's actions in the November battle is still open to commanders involved in the battle.

A commando with the 4th battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, Pte Worsley was killed by a single shot to the left temple from a machine gun just 18 metres away.

He managed to alert his comrades to the machine gunner and then shot three to four rounds before being killed.

A separate inquiry dealing specifically with Pte Worsley's death concluded his "death occurred in straightforward circumstances of combat".

A third inquiry released by Lt Gen Gillespie dealt with the death of Sergeant Matthew Locke - a member of the Special Air Service - on October 25.

It said Sgt Locke was not wearing body armour when he was killed by Taliban insurgents because the operation he was involved in required stealth.

But the inquiry found body armour would not have saved him.

"The wearing of a ballistic armour plate would not have accorded any protection to Sgt Locke from the fatal projectile since the entry wound was located above the area accorded protection by the chest plate."