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Afghan civilian death toll rises

Airstrikes and clashes north of Kabul have killed at least 11 people, some of whom might be civilians, Afghan officials said yesterday. In the south, five civilians died when their vehicle hit a mine, police said.

More than 10 people were killed on Saturday in the clash near Kapisa, about 60km north of Kabul, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. The ministry did not say if those killed were militants or civilians.

The provincial deputy governor, Rahimullah Safi, said that 11 people were killed and they were all civilians. Three others were wounded after an airstrike in the village of Juibar in the restless Tagab valley of Kapisa Province, Safi said.

But the provincial police chief, Matiullah Safi, said it was not yet clear if the dead were militants or civilians.

The US-led coalition said there were airstrikes in the region, but there were no reports of civilian casualties.

The airstrikes followed a clash between NATO-led troops and militants, Rahimullah Safi said.

“There was a report that the insurgents were meeting in the village, and foreign soldiers surrounded the area,” Safi said.

“There was fighting in the village and then helicopters and fighter jets came,” he said.

The airstrikes and clashes damaged three or four homes, Safi said.

“The village elders called me to say they were going to bury their dead, and ask NATO not to bomb,” Rahimullah Safi said.

Civilian deaths are a sore point between the Afghan government and foreign troops here. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pleaded with the US and NATO to avoid killing innocents and undermining already tenuous popular support for his government. Military officials have pointed out that insurgents often hide in civilian areas.

Meanwhile, five Afghan civilians died yesterday when their vehicle struck a freshly planted mine close to an Afghan military base in Zhari district of southern Kandahar Province, district Police Chief Bismillah Khan said. Three other civilians were wounded.

Khan blamed the Taliban for planting the mine. He said the victims were farmers on their way to the orchards to collect grapes.

Meanwhile, Afghan authorities were yesterday checking the reports that more than a dozen civilians were killed by a foreign forces airstrike in an area to the northeast of the capital, an official said.

Some 400 non-combatants have been killed so far this year during operations of NATO and US-led forces as well as Afghan troops, Afghan officials and aid agencies say.

Tagab lies some 90km to the northeast of Kabul and is located to the east of Bagram air base, the hub of operation of US-led forces in Afghanistan.

Troops from NATO and the US-led military have clashed with suspected militants on several occasions in Kapisa in recent months and provincial officials in the past have complained of some civilian deaths.

In southern Afghanistan, a Canadian soldier was killed on Saturday in an attack on NATO forces by insurgents, the Canadian defense ministry said in a statement.

The soldier was the 89th Canadian to be killed in Afghanistan since the start of the Canadian mission in 2002.

He died from his injuries after being transported to a military hospital in southern Kandahar after the attack in the Zharey region.

The death takes to 154 the number of international soldiers to lose their lives in Afghanistan this year, most of them in attacks.

Last month, for the third consecutive month, more soldiers with international forces were killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq, even though there are fewer forces on the ground there.

Canada maintains a contingent of 2,500 soldiers in the Kandahar region as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said.


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