Afghan president Hamid Karzai is condemning the killing of six children and an adult in the southern part of the country that local officials blame on a NATO airstrike.

Karzai's office said in a statement Thursday that local officials say NATO was responsible for the incident in the Zharzai district of Kandahar province.

NATO says that Gen. John Allen _ the top U.S. and allied commander in Afghanistan _ has ordered an investigation into the incident, which occurred Wednesday.

The statement said Allen was saddened by the incident but provided no other details.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) _ A U.S.-educated banker is set to become the new governor of Afghanistan's troubled central bank, the president's spokesman said Thursday.

Noorullah Delawari's nomination comes after a five month vacancy in the post caused by turmoil in Afghanistan's banking system due to the near-collapse of the Kabul Bank, once the country's largest private financial institution.

Hamid Elmi, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, announced the nomination.

Parliament is expected to discuss the appointment on Saturday, said lawmaker Gul Pacha Majeidi.

The announcement came as insurgents seeking to overthrown Karzai's government kept up their campaign of violence around Afghanistan.

Taliban militants attacked a convoy carrying goods for NATO in the country's west, killing seven Afghan guards working for a private security company, an Afghan provincial official said.

A spokesman for the governor of western Farah province, Nakibullah Farai, said the Thursday attack lasted two hours and ended after Afghan police intervened. He said no foreign were troops involved.

Farai said 10 vehicles were destroyed in the attack. He said he did not know if there were Taliban casualties.

The handover at the nation's central bank follows months of turmoil.

Delawari is a former central bank governor who now sits on the institution's governing board. He would replace Abdul Qadir Fitrat, who fled to northern Virginia in late June after claiming to have received threats to his life in connection with the Kabul Bank scandal.

Kabul Bank became a symbol of the country's deep-rooted corruption. The case has been closely followed by Afghans and international donors because it is widely perceived to be a test of the government's pledge to root out patronage and graft.

Afghanistan's financial system appears to be slowly recovering from the aftereffects of the near collapse, which required a massive central bank bailout.

Last week, the IMF approved a three-year $133.6 million loan for Afghanistan because it found the government had taken steps to address governance and accountability issues that surfaced during the Kabul Bank crisis. The decision reassured international donors, many whom had withheld aid while waiting for the IMF decision.

The Kabul Bank has been split into two parts, a healthy one run by the Afghan Finance Ministry, and another. which is has taken over hundreds of millions of dollars in bad loans. The Afghan government hopes to put the healthy bank up for sale in the middle of next year.

In October, the Afghan Finance Ministry said that of the more than $800 million in fraudulent loans issued by Kabul Bank, more than $70 million has been recovered, $350 million in loans have been restructured for repayment and $110 million in assets associated with the loans have been seized and transferred to the government.

Delawari, who is in his mid-60s, also heads the Afghan Investment Support Agency. The Afghan government set up the agency in September 2003 as a one-stop shop for investors. The agency oversees registration, licensing and promotion of new investments in Afghanistan.

Delawari left Afghanistan in the 1960s and studied in the United States and Britain. He worked at several banks in the United States, including 16 years as vice president of the multinational division of Lloyds Bank of California.

Since returning to Afghanistan in 2002, Delawari has also been an adviser to the president. He was governor of Afghanistan's central bank from November 2004 to December 2007.

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Associated Press writer Amir Shah contributed from Kabul