Every year of the last three decade has been a year of bloodshed in Afghanistan. USSR invasion, civil war and Taliban all caused death of millions of innocent Afghans. In past ten years – deemed as a comparatively peaceful era for Afghanistan – civilian killings have continued; caused both by Taliban insurgents and the US led international troops.
Armed clashes, suicide/roadside bombings and other sorts of terrorist attacks cause innocent people to die almost daily. Meanwhile blind raids by US led forces have also taken lives of Afghan civilians from time to time. Regretfully, the United Nations, NATO and Afghan government have failed to address the issue. The only thing they have done is condemnation and compiling figures.
According to Jan Kubis, the U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan during the period January-April there has been 20 percent fall in civilian causalities. Comparison has been made with figures of the same period in 2011. Kubis did not unveil the total number of people killed in that period, although he held armed opposition responsible for majority of the killings.
Apparently, the decrement sounds good. However, a hard winter has just wrapped up and everyone knows there is little offensive in Afghanistan during that season. Taliban's spring offensive titled 'al-Farooq' just began this month. A complete fighting season is under way. More civilian deaths is unfortunately expected.
In order to make the 2014 pullout possible or make the so-called peace process yield results, the insurgents need to be weakened by launching more military operation against them. This will result in more clashes between NATO supported Afghan security forces and the insurgents. Therefore, when there is fight, civilian killings are inevitable – past experience proves this.
20 percent decrement in civilian causalities does not mean people are safe. That figure should not be the target. The NATO and Afghan forces must take more measures to protect civilians' lives. That is what they are here for. Meanwhile, insurgents' fight is with the NATO and Afghan government. They should die out of shame for killing innocent men, women and children.