March 9, 2011
Taliban Causes Most Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan, U.N. Says
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Last year was the deadliest of more than nine years of war for Afghan civilians, the United Nations reported Wednesday, attributing 75 percent of the deaths to attacks by Taliban and other insurgents rather than coalition forces.
The United Nations said 2,777 civilians were killed in 2010 -- a 15 percent increase over the previous year -- in its annual civilian casualty report, authored jointly with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.
Despite several prominent recent episodes involving civilian deaths that have strained relations with the Afghan government, deaths caused by NATO forces declined by 26 percent, the report found, reflecting new precautionary steps by military commanders, including Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the previous top commander in Afghanistan, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, who took over eight months ago.
United Nations officials here called Wednesday for better protection of Afghan civilians, saying that the rising number of civilian deaths was unacceptable. It challenged the Taliban -- the group responsible for the vast majority of casualties -- to do more to protect noncombatants.
"We urge all parties to the armed conflict -- the antigovernment elements, the government of Afghanistan and international military forces -- to do far more in 2011 to comply with their legal responsibilities to protect civilians," said Georgette Gagnon, director of human rights for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
The trend of the insurgents' being linked to a majority of casualties accelerated, the report found. The Taliban and other insurgent groups were responsible for 2,080 deaths, or 75 percent of the total, while NATO and Afghan government forces were responsible for 16 percent of the deaths. Nine percent of civilian deaths could not be attributed to either side in the conflict.
The "Taliban may complain about this report, but fact is fact," said Staffan de Mistura, the special representative to the United Nations secretary general for Afghanistan. "Most of the civilian casualties were done by the Taliban and other antigovernment forces."
A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, rejected the report's overall findings, calling the United Nations an agent of the United States, but he acknowledged that Taliban fighters did sometimes kill civilians in the course of operations.
"I admit that there are always civilians who get killed, and there is no 100 percent guarantee of protecting them during a war," he said.
"Sometimes our mujahedeen commit mistakes as well, and mistakenly they detonate the bomb and then it causes civilians to get killed," he said.
"Some of the bombs are also set by the intelligence department of the Afghan government, and they kill civilians and then blame the mujahedeen for it," he alleged.
Most sinister was the rise in assassinations by insurgents, according to the report. There was a 105 percent increase in assassinations last year compared with 2009.
Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan.
