Report: Afghan Troops Failing to Address Civilian Killings

Fears of Spike in Such Killings as Troops Take on More Solo Operations

Usually, civilian death reports focus either on NATO or Taliban fighters, but a new report from the Center for Civilians in Conflict is faulting the Afghan military and national police force for their own killings, and their relative lack of action when they do so.

The report says that the Afghan security forces have few policies aimed at avoiding civilian casualties in their operations, and other than payments to relatives appear mostly ambivalent about reacting when civilians are killed.

Though the report concedes that Afghan forces are a relatively small portion of the civilian toll compared to either Taliban or NATO, it expresses fear that the toll could spike as the Afghan military tries to assert itself with more solo operations.

The biggest advantage the Afghan military has in not killing civilians is that they don’t have an air force. NATO’s killings have included some night raids, to be sure, but the bulk of their high profile killings were in air strikes against populated areas.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.