UN: Civilian Casualties Rising Sharply in Afghanistan
VOA News
10 August 2010
A new United Nations report says civilian casualties in Afghanistan have risen sharply in the first half of 2010, with the Taliban and other insurgents largely responsible for the increase.
In a report issued Tuesday nearly 1,300 Afghans died and 2,000 were injured in conflict-related injuries, attributed mostly to the use of more sophisticated homemade bombs.
The U.N. said Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for 76 percent of the casualties, which includes civilians who have been injured or killed, up from 53 percent last year. Casualties attributed to NATO forces fell by almost a third over the same period to account for 12 percent this year.
U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura called the report a "wake-up call," telling a Kabul news conference that the human cost of the conflict is being paid too heavily by civilians, particularly women and children. The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, has said coalition forces must continue to work to prevent civilian deaths.
Suicide attackers struck the Afghan capital Tuesday, killing two civilians and wounding a security guard. Afghan police said the attackers targeted a guesthouse used by a foreign security company, British-based Hart Security, in central Kabul.
The chief of criminal investigations, Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, said two milants detonated their explosives after trying to enter the gate of the compound in the Taimani neighborhood of the Afghan capital. The Taliban claimed responsibility.
Although Kabul is heavily fortified with police checkpoints around its perimeter, militants have been able to stage multiple attacks there.
Also Tuesday, five human rights groups have asked the website WikiLeaks to do a better job of redacting names from thousands of war documents it is posting online.
The groups -- including Amnesty International and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission -- said they were concerned about the safety of Afghan citizens identified as helping coalition forces.
The Wall Street Journal reported that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange asked whether Amnesty International would help redact the names. The group said it had limited resources, but would not rule out the idea of helping. The U.S. Department of Defense is demanding that WikiLeaks return the leaked documents to the U.S. government.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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