A new UN report on the Afghan War has concluded that over 3,800
civilians were killed in Afghanistan in the past year, including 930
children. Both of these numbers are the highest level recorded for a
single year since the US invasion in 2001.
Record death tolls have been well-established by previous reports. The
UN however also added that Afghan forces, and the US military’s growing campaign of airstrikes, killed most of the children.
Pointing this out is likely to anger NATO. Official NATO reports claim
that the overwhelming majority of deaths are the Taliban’s fault, though
investigations tend not to be very rigorous beyond reach the desired
conclusion. NATO claimed they’d killed only 62 civilians all year in
airstrikes.
The NATO figures aren’t credible at all, given how many media reports of
substantial casualties in US airstrikes. In most of those cases, NATO
claimed to be “aware” of the allegations, though this figure shows that
they largely were not included in the official file.
UN: US Airstrikes Contributing to Record Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan
Both civilian and child deaths reach a wartime high
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.
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