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| Afghanistan |
| Afghan civilian casualties down 39 per cent |
| 2009-04-24 |
| I, for one, did not see this coming. Why hasn't the MSM been following this? Could it be that the reporting on Afghanistan is as innaccurate and biased as the reporting on Iraq? Western and Taliban-led forces between them killed almost 40 per cent fewer Afghan civilians in the first three months of this year than in the same period of 2008, NATO's top spokesman told journalists in Brussels on Wednesday. The 39-per-cent reduction in civilian deaths "at least in part reflects the increased efforts by international forces" to reduce the body count, James Appathurai said. NATO heads the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, but has been plagued by accusations of civilian deaths - an issue which has had a serious impact on the alliance's image among some segments of the Afghan population. Over the last 18 months, NATO has boosted its troop presence in Afghanistan by almost half in a bid to rein in the rising Taliban-led insurgency, with thousands more troops set to join ISAF's current 58,000 soldiers over the summer. NATO and Afghan forces are also due to set up some three dozen coordination centres around the country over the summer in order to beef up security ahead of national elections. Despite those major boosts, "it is important to note that efforts to reduce the number of civilian casualties are having an effect," Appathurai stressed. According to NATO's figures, Taliban-led fighters killed roughly four times as many Afghan civilians as did international forces in the first quarter of the year. That proportion was unchanged since last year, Appathurai said. |
| Posted by:Frozen Al |
| #1 "Western and Taliban-led forces between them killed almost 40 per cent fewer Afghan civilians in the first three months of this year" Oy. So, what was the actual reduction figure attributed to EACH??? (like the Taliban actually gives a $hit about civilians) |
| Posted by: logi_cal 2009-04-24 16:14 |