Airstrikes kill fewer Afghans, but more dying on ground

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Airstrikes kill fewer Afghans, but more dying on ground
By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Tuesday, March 2, 2010

KABUL, Afghanistan — Even as U.S. forces take steps to reduce the number of Afghan civilians killed by aerial attacks, other civilian casualties remain stubbornly high — deaths in so-called escalation of force incidents in which edgy American troops fire on civilians who've come too close to their convoys or roadblocks.

The number of Afghans killed in such incidents rose 43 percent in 2009 to 113, from 79 in 2008, while the total number of NATO coalition-caused civilian deaths and injuries declined 15.5 percent, to 535 from 633.

How to avoid killing civilians has been a persistent problem for American troops since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when several well publicized incidents of U.S. soldiers killing friendly civilians soured many Iraqis on the American presence. It also fueled the insurgency, U.S officials came to believe. "I would argue in many instances we are our own worst enemy,'' Army Gen. Peter Chiarelli said of civilian casualties in 2006, when he was the No. 2 commander in Iraq.

Shortly after Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal assumed command of all U.S. forces in Afghanistan in June, he ordered U.S. troops to back off some fights if civilian casualties couldn't be avoided. In the months since, the use of U.S. air power has dropped, even during the recent offensive in Marjah, where errant air strikes killed at least 35 civilians in incidents that Afghan President Hamid Karzai called "unjustifiable."

However, a similar order involving what McChrystal called "aggressive driving" hasn't cut the number of civilians killed when nervous U.S. troops on the ground warn approaching civilians to back away, then end up opening fire on them.


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