If New Zealand troops didn't kill civilians in Afghanistan, who did?

A lawyer acting on behalf of villagers allegedly injured in a botched raid says the Defence Force hasn't given sufficient answers.

The military denies it was ever in the area where a number of civilians died, but lawyer Deborah Manning said the chief of the Defence Force needs to back an independent inquiry to completely absolve them.

She said six people were killed by military forces - including a three-year-old girl - and the families deserve reassurances.

She said the families are pleading for New Zealand to help.

"They are, on the one hand, very grateful to New Zealanders for caring about what happened to them. It's very touching for them. But on the other hand, as with all victims of crime, it's deeply traumatising."

She said if the Defence Force has nothing to hide, it should open its files to an independent inquiry.

Similar claims of civilian deaths alleged in Nicky Hager and Jon Stevenson's book, were the premise for the ISAF investigation into the SAS-led raids in Afghanistan.

In the days after the August 2010 operation, villagers went to the state governor claiming a "very big operation had occurred with helicopters" and that those involved with the operation were firing at civilians.

Head of Defence Legal Services, Colonel Lisa Ferris, said ISAF stood up a team of legal and Government personnel, and the investigation was headed by a Brigadier General.

"The investigation team concluded that civilian casualties may have been possible due to the malfunction of a weapons system, as was made public by ISAF in their statement of the 29 August 2010."

She said the investigation also concluded that New Zealand soldiers had acted within the laws of armed conflict, and that no further action needed to be taken.

Hager is sticking by his versions of events despite the Defence Force detailing what it knows to have happened - and pointing out a number of 'inaccuracies' in the book.

Chief of Defence Tim Keating said Hager and Stevenson got the villages wrong, and that Operation Burnham happened 2km south of where they say it did.

He refutes the claim that six civilians were killed, and said there is no evidence of war crimes.

But Hager is adamant, saying: "I've worked for two years on this. I've sat for hours and hours with people who were right in the midst of it, talked it over detail by detail spent weeks going over the maps of it. I am absolutely certain that we've got the story correct."