Feb. 18, 2009
Afghan Civilian Deaths Rose 40 Percent in 2008
By Dexter Filkins
The number of civilians killed in Afghanistan leapt by nearly 40 percent last year, according to a survey released Tuesday by the United Nations, the latest measure of how the intensifying violence between the Taliban and American-led forces is ravaging that country.
The death toll -- 2,118 civilians killed in 2008, compared with 1,523 in 2007 -- is the highest since the Taliban government was ousted in November 2001, at the outset of a war with no quick end in sight.
Just one day after the United Nations report was issued, The Associated Press said on Wednesday it obtained photographs showing the body of a young boy at the site of an American strike in western Afghanistan. The American military had said up to 15 militants were killed in the attack. The A.P. reported that an American general had traveled to the area to investigate claims by Afghan officials that six women and two children were among the dead.
Civilian deaths have become a political flash point in Afghanistan, eroding public support for the war and inflaming tensions with President Hamid Karzai, who has bitterly condemned the American-led coalition for the rising toll. President Obama's decision to deploy more troops to Afghanistan raises the prospect of even more casualties.
The United Nations report found that the Taliban and other insurgents caused the majority of the civilian deaths, primarily through suicide bombers and roadside bombs, many aimed at killing as many civilians as possible.
Taliban fighters routinely attacked American and other pro-government forces in densely populated areas, the report said, apparently in the hope of provoking a response that would kill even more civilians.
But the report also found that Afghan government forces and those of the American-led coalition killed 828 people last year, up sharply from the previous year. Most of those were killed in airstrikes and raids on villages, which are often conducted at night.
One day this month, an old man who called himself Syed Mohammed sat on the floor of his mud-brick hut in the eastern Kabul neighborhood of Hotkheil and recounted how most of his son's family was wiped out in an American-led raid last September.
Mr. Mohammed said he was awakened in the early morning to the sound of gunfire and explosions. Such sounds were not uncommon; Hotkheil is a Pashtun-dominated area, where sympathies for the Taliban run strong.
In a flash, Mr. Mohammed said, several American and Afghan soldiers kicked open the door of his home. The Americans, he said, had beards, an almost certain sign that they belonged to a unit of the Special Forces, which permits uniformed soldiers to grow facial hair.
"Who are you?" Mr. Mohammed recalled asking the intruders.
"Shut up," came the reply from one of the Afghan soldiers. "We are the government."
Mr. Mohammed said he was taken to a nearby base, interrogated for several hours and let go as sunrise neared.
When he returned home, Mr. Mohammed said, he went next door to his son's house, only to find that most of his family had been killed: the son, Nurallah, and his pregnant wife and two of his sons, Abdul Basit, age 1, and Mohammed, 2. Only Mr. Mohammed's 4-year-old grandson, Zarqawi, survived.
"The soldiers had a right to search our house," Mr. Mohammed said. "But they didn't have a right to do this."
Bullet holes still pockmarked Nurallah's home more than four months after the attack, and the infant's cradle still hung from the ceiling.
The day after the attack, a senior Afghan official came to the door and handed Mr. Mohammed $800.
"If you spent some time here, you would see that we are not the kind of people who would get involved with the Taliban," Mr. Mohammed said. "Anyway, what was the fault of the babies?"
American military spokesmen in Kabul, Washington and Tampa, Fla., the headquarters of Central Command, did not respond to requests for comment about the civilian deaths.
The newly released United Nations report singled out Special Forces and other military units operating outside the normal chains of command, which, the survey said, frequently could not be held accountable for their actions.
Special Forces groups like Navy Seals and paramilitary units operated by the C.I.A. often conduct raids in Afghanistan, and often at night. Such groups typically operate outside the normal chains of command, which means that their presence and movements are not always known by regular field commanders.
The report also said the airstrikes that went awry were often those called in by troops under attack. Under such circumstances, some of the normal rules may not apply. Mr. Karzai has been especially critical of airstrikes, saying they are eroding public support for his government and for the effort to defeat the Taliban.
An American attack in the western Afghan village of Azizabad last August highlighted these tensions. An American AC-130 gunship struck a suspected Taliban compound, killing more than 90 people.
American commanders initially insisted that only five to seven civilians had been killed. But reporters visiting the scene saw evidence of a higher death toll, and a United Nations investigation concluded that about 90 civilians had been killed, about 75 of them women and children. The American military appointed a Pentagon-based general to re-examine the episode, and he concluded that more than 30 civilians had died.
In the aftermath of the Azizabad episode, American and other allied commanders tightened the rules for delivering airstrikes. The United Nations survey said it was unclear whether those new rules would have a lasting effect on reducing civilian deaths.
For all the civilians killed at the hands of the Afghan government and American-led forces, the Afghan people have more to fear from the insurgents, the report said. Not only did Taliban fighters kill more civilians, but they also tried repeatedly to kill as many as they could.
Mohammed Amin Kadimi, a 45-year-old laborer in Kabul, survived such a Taliban attack.
One day in late 2006, Mr. Kadimi was pushing his wheelbarrow down a city street, looking for people who might hire him. Sure enough, a young man approached and handed him a large paper bag. It weighed about 10 pounds, Mr. Kadimi recalled.
The young man asked Mr. Kadimi to carry the bag to Pul-e-Khesthi, a neighborhood a few blocks away. The young man said he would follow.
So Mr. Kadimi set off with his wheelbarrow. After a while, he noticed the young man was no longer behind him. Then the bag exploded.
"I flew away," Mr. Kadimi said.
Mr. Kadimi lost his left leg. The right one is mangled so horribly that it is a wonder he has it at all.
These days, Mr. Kadimi sits in a wooden chair on Kart-e-Char Street, selling cellphone cards. He is a father of six. Occasionally, he wonders why the young man chose him, and what his purpose was.
"It's just anarchy," he said.
The United Nations report also described a Taliban campaign of assassination to intimidate anyone who associates with the Afghan government.
One grisly example comes from the southern city of Kandahar, where 24 clerics who joined a government-backed council have been killed in recent months, many of them in the downtown. Some 271 Afghan officials and others who cooperated with the government were assassinated last year, the report said.
The survey also documented the Taliban's campaign to intimidate children, and particularly girls, from going to school. More than 640 schools have ceased to function, the survey said, depriving some 230,000 children of education.