Washington – President Barack Obama plans to travel to Poland to attend the state funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and first lady Maria Kaczynska, who died along with other government officials in a crash of the presidential aircraft.

Obama plans to travel to Krakow on Saturday for a funeral planned for Sunday, the White House announced Tuesday.

The president will attend the funeral “to express the depth of our condolences to an important and trusted ally, and our support for the Polish people, on behalf of the American people,” the White House press secretary said in a statement.

Official: Many civilians killed

Peshawar, Pakistan – As many as 71 civilians were killed in a weekend strike by Pakistani fighter jets near the Afghan border, survivors and a government official said Tuesday, confirming an incident that risks undercutting public support for the fight against militants.

The army denied any of the dead were civilians, but a government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said authorities already handed out the equivalent of $125,000 in compensation to families of the victims in a remote village in the Khyber tribal area.

The official declined to say how many of the dead were civilians but said Shafiullah Khan, the top official in Khyber, apologized to local tribesman and admitted the victims were “mostly” innocent villagers.