Jude Law in Afghanistan to call for peace after five children are killed during fighting

The twice Oscar-nominated British actor called for militants, foreign forces and the Afghan government to give up their arms for one day as the first step towards peace.

He was promoting a new documentary for the Peace One Day organisation, which campaigns for an annual global ceasefire on September 21, the United Nations International Day of Peace.

Jude Law at a press conference in Kabul calling for an annual global ceasefire on September 21 following the deaths of five children

"Please mark the day. The need now is greater than ever before," Law told a news conference in Kabul.

The film, called "The Day After Peace", also features Hollywood celebrity and human rights activist Angelina Jolie. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Law and the documentary's director Jeremy Gilley are to meet President Hamid Karzai, top NATO and U.N. officials, and members of the aid community.

Documentary director Jeremy Gilley accompanied Jude Law

Last year, they traveled and filmed in treacherous areas of eastern Afghanistan to help promote the day, on which they hope weapons will fall silent, allowing help to reach those most in need.

Foreign and Afghan forces killed five children in two separate incidents Monday, inflaming tensions in Afghanistan over the killings of civilians by troops from the U.S. and other countries.

NATO said it accidentally killed three children in an artillery strike in eastern Afghanistan.

It said NATO forces fired the rounds after insurgents attacked its patrol in Gayan district of Paktika province and one of the rounds hit a house, killing three children and injuring seven civilians.

In a separate incident, foreign and Afghan forces killed a man and his two children and during a raid near Kabul, police and witnesses said.

Angry men gathered at the victims' house in the Utkheil area east of the capital, where the three bodies were displayed inside a mud-walled compound.

The man's wife was wounded in the operation, said Yahya Khan, a cousin.

In another sign of the sensitivity over civilian deaths, NATO issued an unusual statement warning that the Taliban planned to make a false claim about the killings of civilians in the south.

NATO said it was anticipating a Taliban claim of further civilian casualties in the south.

In a statement late Sunday, NATO said it had received information from "a reliable source" that insurgents planned to falsely claim international military forces killed up to 70 civilians in Sangin district in southern Helmand province.

The warning of a possible civilian casualty claim came hours after the separate U.S.-led coalition command said its troops killed more than 220 insurgents in a week of fighting in the same province.

The coalition did not say where the militants were killed.

The latest deaths deepened strains between the Afghan government - under pressure from an increasingly irate public - and foreign forces in the country who are accused of killing dozens of civilians only in the past few weeks.

Afghan officials accuse foreign forces of killing up to 90 civilians during an August 22 operation in the country's west.

The U.S. denies the accusation, saying its troops and Afghan commandos killed 25 militants and five civilians in the operation.