Alarm over Afghan civilian deaths
Troops and militants are blamed for civilian deaths
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At least 250 Afghan civilians have been killed or wounded in insurgent attacks or military action in the past six days, the Red Cross says.
It has called on all parties to the conflict to avoid civilian casualties.
Nato said separately that more than 900 people including civilians had died in Afghanistan since the start of 2008.
On Monday a suicide bombing in Kabul killed more than 40 people, while officials say two coalition air strikes killed dozens at the weekend.
The issue of civilian casualties is hugely sensitive in Afghanistan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly urged foreign forces to exercise more care.
‘Constant care’
The statement released by the International Committee of the Red Cross say that civilians “must never be the target of an attack, unless they take a direct part in the fighting”.
More and more civilians are being killed in Afghanistan
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The organisation’s chief representative in Kabul, Franz Rauchenstein, made his findings public following Monday’s suicide car bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul and reports that a US-led coalition air strike had killed members of a wedding party in the east of the country.
“We call on all parties to the conflict, in the conduct of their military operations, to distinguish at all times between civilians and fighters and to take constant care to spare civilians,” Mr Rauchenstein said.
His report said that parties to the conflict “must take all necessary precautions to verify that targets are indeed military objectives and that attacks will not cause excessive civilian casualties and damage”.
The statement also expressed concern “about the reportedly high number of civilian casualties resulting from the recent [coalition] air strikes in the east of the country”.
The Taleban has denied involvement in Monday’s bombing, which killed 41 people, while the US-led coalition has disputed claims that its recent airstrikes killed civilians.
Mr Karzai has ordered an investigation into one of the bombings, in eastern Nangarhar province. Locals there said at least 20 people had been killed on Sunday at a wedding party.
US forces rejected the claims, saying those killed were militants involved in previous mortar attacks on a Nato base.
The UN said recently that the number of civilians killed in fighting in Afghanistan had jumped by nearly two thirds compared to last year.
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Peace and Justice Post 
Civilians Pay Price of War from Above
May 8, 2009by Robert Fisk | The Independent, UK, May 7, 2009
Of course there will be an inquiry. And in the meantime, we shall be told that all the dead Afghan civilians were being used as “human shields” by the Taliban and we shall say that we “deeply regret” innocent lives that were lost. But we shall say that it’s all the fault of the terrorists, not our heroic pilots and the US Marine special forces who were target spotting around Bala Baluk and Ganjabad.
When the Americans destroy Iraqi homes, there is an inquiry. And oh how the Israelis love inquiries (though they rarely reveal anything). It’s the history of the modern Middle East. We are always right and when we are not, we (sometimes) apologise and then we blame it all on the “terrorists”. Yes, we know the throat-cutters and beheaders and suicide bombers are quite prepared to slaughter the innocent.
But it was a sign of just how terrible the Afghan slaughter was that the powerless President Hamid Karzai sounded like a beacon of goodness yesterday appealing for “a higher platform of morality” in waging war, that we should conduct war as “better human beings”.
And of course, the reason is quite simple. We live, they die. We don’t risk our brave lads on the ground – not for civilians. Not for anything. Fire phosphorus shells into Fallujah. Fire tank shells into Najaf. We know we kill the innocent. Israel does exactly the same. It said the same after its allies massacred 1,700 at the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila in 1982 and in the deaths of more than a thousand civilians in Lebanon in 2006 and after the death of more than a thousand Palestinians in Gaza this year.
And if we kill some gunmen at the same time – “terrorists”, of course – then it is the same old “human shield” tactic and ultimately the “terrorists” are to blame. Our military tactics are now fully aligned with Israel.
The reality is that international law forbids armies from shooting wildly in crowded tenements and bombing wildly into villages – even when enemy forces are present – but that went by the board in our 1991 bombing of Iraq and in Bosnia and in Nato’s Serbia war and in our 2001 Afghan adventure and in 2003 in Iraq. Let’s have that inquiry. And “human shields”. And terror, terror, terror. Something else I notice. Innocent or “terrorists”, civilians or Taliban, always it is the Muslims who are to blame.
Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper. He is the author of many books on the region, including The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.
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Tags:Afghan civilians, Afghan slaughter, Afghanistan, Americans, phosphorus shells
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