Afghanistan: Civil Casualties Remains a Divisive Issue for Kabul and Washington

Despite US efforts to minimize accidents, the issue of civilian deaths remains a source of tension between American forces and the Afghan government, and it appears to be eroding popular support for coalition forces fighting Islamic militants. Afghan officials contend that US commanders need to shift their combat priorities to ensure civilian safety. US military representatives counter that it is the Taliban that does not value life, adding that the insurgents are using civilians as "human sacrifice."

The controversy of civilian casualties boiled over yet again following an early May incident in the Bala Baluk district, a Taliban stronghold in southwestern Afghanistan. Preliminary findings released by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) on May 26 show US air strikes in and around Bala Baluk may have caused the single largest civilian toll caused by NATO air power since 2001.

While the Commission has not confirmed its estimate of 97 civilians killed, AIHRC officials stated categorically that at least 52 females, including 31 girls, had been killed in Bala Baluk. The number is expected to rise as investigators verify how many of the remaining deaths are of non-combatants -- including male children -- commission spokesman Nader Nadery told EurasiaNet.

The findings dispute the accounts released by both the US forces on May 21 and the Afghan government. While US forces have said that between 20 and 30 civilians were killed, the Afghan government paid compensation for 140 deaths on May 12.

Presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada told EurasiaNet that "there are some disagreements on the number of people, but that is not important. The important thing is that defenseless people, women and children, amongst others, were killed. This could have been avoided. We are working closely with our partners in the international community, including the US forces, so that we should find ways to bring to an absolute minimum the civilian casualties. So far we have not succeeded."

Disputing the AIHRC and government numbers, US military spokesman Colonel Greg Julian told EurasiaNet on May 26, that the Pentagon would be issuing its own report "soon." While admitting that the military's initial figures may be revised upward, Julian claimed that the physical evidence on the ground showed that AIHRC and government numbers were "exaggerated." "They don't have the evidence we have from the footage of the site and the intelligence we have that reveals the Taliban telling its people to gather and regroup in the compounds," he said.

The dispute over the numbers suggests that despite several tactical directives issued by the former American commander, Gen. David McKiernan, to minimize civilian casualties, the implementation of the directives will be largely left to commanders on the ground. This would seem to leave lots of leeway in how heavy weapons are employed in the Afghan conflict.

While human rights groups and NGOs have called for making the safety of Afghan civilians central to all operations, US President Barack Obama's administration is advancing a strategy that clearly states the "core goal of the United States must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan." In pursuit of this goal, US commanders' interpretation of acceptable levels of collateral damage appears to differ significantly from that of human rights organizations.

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which carried out a rigorous documentation of the rules of engagement last September, pointed out that defensive operating procedures followed by US forces were substantively different from those used by other coalition partners. US forces seemed to have a much lower threshold on the need for air strikes. According to the United Nations, 68 percent of civilian casualties caused by pro-government forces in 2008 resulted from air strikes. Pro-government forces caused 39 percent of the 2,118 civilian casualties documented that year.

While disputing the AIHRC's findings on the use of disproportionate force in Bala Baluk, Julian alleged that the Taliban was deliberately using tactics that produced higher civilian deaths. "Civilians were used not just as human shields, but as human sacrifice," he said.

HRW has called for specific changes in operational tactics including avoiding air strikes on populated areas, urging use of precision guided low-collateral-damage munitions rather than howitzers and heavy artillery, and calling on the military to develop better intelligence on the ground.

Afghans, international monitors and international forces have all cited a lack of intelligence as a cause of civilian casualties. Feuding Afghan groups have been known to call in air strikes against rivals. Several times, the AIHRC says, international forces have acted on such information without cross verification.

"Afghans manipulate the international forces to get at their enemies," said analyst Haroun Mir, Co-Founder and Deputy Director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS). Mir called for better intelligence gathering, but conceded there is no way of fighting the war with the given troop numbers without using air strikes.

President Hamid Karzai had called for an end to air strikes following the Bala Baluk incident, an appeal rejected by US officials. Karzai spokesman Hamidzada said the president had ordered a commission that included ministers and experts to come up with a draft strategy that could become the basis for the new Status of Forces Agreement, currently in the process of revision.

The Afghan government's investigations into Bala Baluk -- which the AIHRC, citing concerns about accuracy, described as "hasty" -- appears to have been prompted by a desire to contain the political damage to Karzai's reelection campaign. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].