Civilian deaths from international air strikes in Afghanistan nearly tripled between 2006 and last year with new deadly strikes fuelling a public backlash, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday.
Insurgents were also guilty of causing civilian deaths by using ordinary people as “human shields” against troops, including by deploying into villages, the New York-based rights group said in a report.
But the international forces, and the US military in particular, needed to “end the mistakes that are killing so many civilians,” HRW Asia director Brad Adams warned in a statement accompanying the report.
“Mistakes by the US and NATO have dramatically decreased public support for the Afghan government and the presence of international forces providing security to Afghans,” he said.
“Civilian deaths from air strikes act as a recruiting tool for the Taliban and risk fatally undermining the international effort to provide basic security to the people of Afghanistan,” he said.
The report comes less than two weeks after Afghan government and UN investigation teams said US-led coalition air strikes killed more than 90 villagers, most of them children, on Aug. 22 in the western village of Azizabad.
The coalition rejects the figure saying only five to seven died along with 30 to 35 Taliban.
If the toll of 90 is confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest such incidents since the US led troops into Afghanistan seven years ago to remove the Taliban from government and round up extremist militants.
HRW said that in 2006 at least 699 Afghan civilians were killed in militant attacks, including suicide bombings, and at least 230 in international military action, around half in air strikes.
At least 950 died last year in attacks by insurgent forces, including the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and at least 321 in air strikes.
“Thus, civilian deaths from US and NATO air strikes nearly tripled from 2006 to 2007,” the group said.
In the first seven months of this year, at least 367 civilians had been killed in insurgent attacks and at least 119 in air strikes, the group said, adding its data was based on conservative estimates.
The air strikes that accounted for almost all the civilian dead were unplanned and called in to help troops under attack, HRW said.
“Rapid response air strikes have meant higher civilian casualties, while every bomb dropped in populated areas amplifies the chance of a mistake,” Adams said.
The watchdog accused US officials in particular of a “poor response” when civilian deaths did occur, saying the US military often immediately denied responsibility or placed all blame on the Taliban.
Its investigations had been “unilateral, ponderous, and lacking in transparency” and undercut relations with local populations and the Afghan government, the group said. Compensation payouts to survivors or relatives of victims had not been timely or adequate, it said, calling for the coalition forces to improve their method of assessing damages.
“While Taliban shielding is a factor in some civilian deaths, the US shouldn’t use this as an excuse when it could have taken better precautions. It is, after all, its bombs that are doing the killing,” Adams said.
PROBE REOPENING
Meanwhile, the US military has reopened an investigation into the Aug. 22 air strike after new video evidence emerged, officials said yesterday.
The US-led coalition agreed to a review on the request of General David McKiernan, the most senior US officer in Afghanistan, the US Central Command said in a statement yesterday.
The command “will appoint a senior US military officer to review the investigation into the combined Afghan National Army [ANA] and US Forces operation,” said the statement.
“This review will consider new information that has become available since the completion of the initial investigation,” it said.
Images captured on a mobile telephone by one of the residents of the village show at least 30 bodies packed into a mosque and covered with blankets.
Some of the covers are lifted to show several children, some only toddlers, and at least one with the back of its skull blown off.
An Afghan investigation, appointed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said the dead included around 50 children aged under 15 years, 19 women and some men.
The team also said there was video evidence that it sent to its intelligence services.
A separate UN investigation came up with a similar conclusion but US officials reportedly cast doubt on the allegations citing lack of physical evidence.
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