In the period of less than a week, death toll from two terror attacks – let alone the others – has reached to sixty. The tears of families who lost their beloved ones on April-3 attack in Farah province have not dried yet and there is another attack. Yesterday, a mini-bus carrying civilian passengers hit a road-side bomb in central Maidan Wardak province as a result of which 9 civilians were killed and 28 others got injured.
Insurgent groups deny taking responsibilities of attacks where civilians are killed. Nevertheless, Taliban have been planting IEDs/road-side bombs to target convoys of NATO and ANSF. The IED tactic has proved to be deadlier for civilian than for military. Despite that, the insurgents never give up planting IEDs on the highways connecting Afghanistan’s province and districts to each other.
The Taliban and other anti-government armed groups have been responsible for a huge portion of civilian killings in Afghanistan. In UNAMA report released in February, 81% of civilian killed last year has been attributed to anti-government forces.
Killing of fault-less civilians in the name of Jihad against foreigners in Afghanistan cannot be justified in any religion. This action is anti-Islam, anti-human and anti-Afghanistan and its perpetrators deserve no sympathy.
Taliban have been blowing the trumpets of following Islamic codes and Shariah. Islam does not allow killing of innocent humans but Taliban have violated that for thousands of times. Continued killing of civilians by Taliban show their real face and does much to foster hatred against them in the hearts of the Afghan people.
After eleven years of counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan – the main purpose of which was to safeguard civilians in Afghanistan and Western countries from the menaces of terrorism – Afghan population is increasingly falling victims of roadside and suicide bombings and other sorts of insurgency. Disappointing fact is that, civilian casualties in one year have always been higher than the year preceding it – considering the UN data on civilian killings in Afghanistan for the last six years except 2012 in which the killing fell by 12%.
The War in Afghanistan (2001–present) has caused the deaths of thousands of Afghan civilians. Directly, they have died as a result of insurgents’ attacks and also military operations. Indirectly, they have died due to displacement, starvation, disease, exposure, lack of medical treatment, crime and lawlessness resulting from the war. As the war seems not be ending soon, the civilian killings will also continue in Afghanistan.