By Ernesto Londono and Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 27, 2010; 6:32 PM

KABUL - NATO commanders and Afghans on Monday provided starkly different accounts of a pre-dawn Christmas Day raid in Kabul that left two civilians dead and further strained the international coalition's uneasy relationship with the Afghan government.

Coalition officials said international and Afghan security forces conducted the operation jointly after receiving a "credible" tip about an impending attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

NATO troops fatally shot two Afghan guards after they moved in on the parking lot of a four-story commercial building that insurgents were suspected of using to stage an attack that would have included two car bombs.

"We followed the usual procedures, and the operation was partnered," NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz told reporters. As the security forces approached the building, he said, they "were shot at. We returned fire and killed two individuals." He described them as "legitimate targets."

Afghan officials and representatives from the Afghan Tiger Group, the company that employed the guards, called the operation botched and unnecessary.

"This was an irresponsible way of dealing with an issue in Kabul city," government spokesman Waheed Omer said during a news conference Monday afternoon. "It is unnecessary for this kind of small operation to become a reason for panic and to create shock in Kabul, a densely populated city where people are slowly forgetting about major security operations."

Although security has deteriorated in much of Afghanistan in recent months, Kabul has remained relatively safe. Afghan forces have officially been in charge of security in the capital for two years, and the government says all major NATO operations in the city need the approval of senior Afghan leaders. Raids such as Saturday morning's are highly unusual here.

Afghan officials said a general was suspended and a colonel fired for signing off on the operation without getting approval from supervisors.

Blotz did not say whether any explosives were found, but he said NATO troops recovered a "large quantity of weapons" at the site. He described cooperation between coalition and Afghan security forces in Kabul as "magnificent" and said they often conduct joint operations.

Witnesses and managers at the building, a glass-plated office center, offered a sharply different version of the incident. They said NATO forces surrounded the area shortly after midnight and began firing at the building without provocation, killing two of the company's night guards and injuring two others.

They said no Afghan security forces were present when the troops attacked and searched the building. They added that none appeared until after company officials had called the police, the Interior Ministry and the National Directorate of Security, an intelligence agency, to alert them that the building was under assault.

"The police said they were not aware of it, the NDS said they were not aware of it, and when they tried to rush here to help, the coalition forces fired in the air and would not let them in," said Hajji Shah Sahidzada, the company's general manager, who appeared shaken and angered by the incident.

"If they thought there were terrorists or al-Qaeda here, what did they find? If they said our guards fired first, where are the bullet holes?" he demanded, holding up a photograph of one of the dead night watchmen, Mohammed Sadiq. "They martyred two of my men for no reason. These operations must be stopped and these people brought to justice."

Sahidzada said the Tiger Group and its subsidiaries perform transportation, logistics and construction work. He said they have won numerous contracts with security clearances to work with the U.S. military and NATO. "How can they suspect us of being terrorists?" he said.

Outside the building Monday, company workers butchered a cow in the parking lot in a gesture of mourning for the slain guards. Ramesh Seerat, another guard, said he had been watching television inside when he heard heavy gunfire.

"The coalition came in shooting. They killed two guards, and they made the rest of us surrender with our hands up," Seerat said. "We waited three hours, and finally the Afghan security people came and freed us. Our government knew nothing about this operation at all."

londonoe@washpost.com constablep@washpost.com