Afghanistan: Civilians Bear Cost of Escalating Insurgent Attacks


Rising Civilian Death Toll Points to Taliban, Hezb-e Islami War Crimes
(Kabul, April 16, 2007) – Civilian deaths from insurgent attacks in
Afghanistan increased dramatically over the past 15 months, and many were
the result of insurgents’ failure to respect the laws of war, Human Rights
Watch said in a report released today.

 Suicide bombings and other insurgent attacks have risen dramatically
since 2005, with almost 700 civilians dying last year at the hands of the
Taliban and other such groups. 

Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights
Watch. 
  
 
The 116-page report, “The Human Cost: The Consequences of Insurgent
Attacks in Afghanistan,”  
describes how Afghan insurgent groups, primarily Taliban and Hezb-e Islami
forces, sharply escalated bombing and other attacks in 2006 and early
2007. The report is based on dozens of interviews with civilian victims of
attacks and their families and a lengthy review of available documents and
records.  
 
“Suicide bombings and other insurgent attacks have risen dramatically
since 2005, with almost 700 civilians dying last year at the hands of the
Taliban and other such groups,” said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and
counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. “The insurgents are
increasingly committing war crimes, often by directly targeting civilians.
Even when they’re aiming at military targets, insurgent attacks are often
so indiscriminate that Afghan civilians end up as the main victims.”  
 
The report documents how, in violation of the laws of war, insurgent
forces have repeatedly, directly targeted civilians for attack, and how
even attacks directed at Afghan and international military forces have
often been launched without due regard for civilian life.  
 
Human Rights Watch has previously reported on numerous cases in which
Afghan government and international forces in Afghanistan appear to have
conducted indiscriminate attacks in violation of the laws of war.  
 
This report explains that 2006 was the deadliest year for civilians in
Afghanistan since 2001. Overall, at least 669 Afghan civilians were killed
in at least 350 armed attacks, most of which appear to have been
intentionally launched at civilians or civilian objects. An additional 52
civilians were killed in insurgent attacks in the first two months of
2007.  
 
Increasingly, the Taliban has been targeting certain groups of civilians,
including humanitarian aid workers, journalists, doctors, religious
leaders, and civilian government employees, condemning them as spies or
collaborators. In 2006, at least 177 civilians were killed in
assassinations, and similar ambushes and attacks have continued in 2007. A
recent and horrific example was the Taliban’s summary execution of Afghan
journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi and his driver, Sayed Agha, in violation of
the laws of war.  
 
“The Taliban’s murders of Afghan journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi and driver
Sayed Agha were war crimes,” Mariner said.  
 
The report contains numerous accounts from Afghan civilian victims and
their relatives, speaking about insurgent attacks and their consequences.
For instance, 9-year-old Sherzad (not her real name), severely injured in
a suicide attack in the capital, Kabul, in March 2006, told Human Rights
Watch about how shrapnel tore open her stomach, spilling her intestines.
“Sometimes I dream about that day – I have nightmares,” Sherzad said. “I
thought that I would not survive. I started saying the Kalimah [the
martyrs’ prayer] when I was hurt that day, because I thought I was going
to die.”  
 
The report describes how insurgents have regularly carried out bombings
and suicide attacks on military targets in crowded, highly populated
areas, killing combatants and civilians without distinction or causing
excessive civilian harm that was disproportionate to expected military
advantages. Many Afghans told Human Rights Watch they could not understand
why insurgent forces would choose to carry out attacks in civilian areas.  
 
One man, burned in a July 2006 bombing near the Ministry of Justice in
Kabul, told Human Rights Watch: “I didn’t see any ISAF people
[international forces] that day near the ministry, I just saw my people,
Afghan people. What was the target, the people?”  
 
The report documents how insurgent attacks are increasingly affecting the
civilian population outside southern and southeastern Afghanistan, the
Taliban’s traditional stronghold. In 2006, nearly a third of recorded
lethal bomb attacks, many of which caused significant civilian casualties,
took place in other areas, including Kabul, the northern city of Mazar-e
Sharif, and the western city of Herat.  
 
Bombings in 2006 more than doubled compared to 2005. Human Rights Watch
counted almost 200 bomb attacks in 2006, killing nearly 500 civilians.
Many were illegal under international humanitarian law. Insurgents
intentionally targeted civilian objects that served no military purpose,
including schools, buses, or bazaars; carried out numerous bombings that
killed combatants and civilians without distinction or caused excessive
civilian casualties in relation to expected military advantages; and used
attacks that appear to have been primarily intended to cause terror among
the civilian population. All these methods are illegal under the laws of
war.  
 
Suicide attacks by insurgents have been especially deadly for civilians.
In 2006 there were at least 136 suicide attacks in Afghanistan, a six-fold
increase over 2005. At least 112 of the attacks – a majority – were on
military targets, yet most killed more civilians than combatants:
approximately 20 other attacks were intentionally aimed at civilians.
Suicide attacks by insurgents in 2006 killed at least 272 Afghan civilians
and 37 government or international forces: suicide attacks killed eight
times as many civilians as combatants.  
 
While suicide attacks are not inherently illegal under the laws of war,
those carried out in Afghanistan often were. Human Rights Watch found that
suicide attackers frequently failed to pinpoint their attacks on military
targets, and often set off explosives in a manner likely to cause
indiscriminate or excessive civilian casualties. Moreover, suicide
attackers almost always disguised themselves as civilians, violating legal
prohibitions against “perfidy” that are meant to uphold the distinction
between civilians and combatants during war. Perfidious attacks further
endanger civilians: numerous Afghan civilians have been mistakenly shot by
international and Afghan government forces who erroneously believed them
to be suicide attackers.  
 
The new report also details how attacks on Afghan teachers and schools,
especially girls’schools, doubled from their already high levels in 2005.
The continuing attacks have forced hundreds of thousands of students out
of classrooms. Taliban and other insurgent forces target schools on
ideological grounds, claiming they are un-Islamic, or because in rural
areas they often are the only symbols of government.  
 
Human Rights Watch noted that military operations by Afghan government and
international forces have also caused numerous civilian casualties. At
least 230 civilians were killed during coalition or NATO operations in
2006, some of which appear to have violated the laws of war. There is no
evidence that coalition forces intentionally target civilians, but in a
number of cases international forces have conducted indiscriminate attacks
or failed to take adequate precautions to prevent harm to civilians. Human
Rights Watch has reported on several of these cases.  
 
Human Rights Watch said today that continuing insecurity and armed
conflict in Afghanistan are contributing to already low levels of
government and development assistance, and to high levels of continuing
displacement. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans are displaced in southern
and southeastern provinces, and millions remain as refugees in Iran and
Pakistan, reluctant to return to Afghanistan, especially to rural areas,
because of poor security and developmental assistance.  
 
“Many Afghans are already struggling to survive,” Mariner said. “The
increased insurgent attacks on civilians, especially government and
humanitarian workers, are making matters worse.”  
 
Human Rights Watch called on the Taliban, Hezb-e Islami, and associated
groups to cease all intentional attacks on civilians and civilian targets,
and avoid all attacks which do not distinguish between civilians and
combatants or which cause disproportionate harm to civilians. Human Rights
Watch also called on insurgents to refrain from using perfidious attacks
and stop all acts intended to instill terror among the civilian
population.  
 
Human Rights Watch also called on the government of Pakistan to take more
effective action against insurgent forces located over the border, which
use Pakistani territory to prepare or plan attacks that violate the laws
of war.  
 
Finally, Human Rights Watch called on Afghan and international forces to
develop better rules of engagement to minimize civilian casualties during
hostilities, for instance by locating military installations at greater
distances from civilian areas, avoiding sending convoys through crowded
areas whenever feasible, and improving how forces respond to real or
perceived insurgent attacks to avoid mistakenly targeting civilians. 



da http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/04/16/afghan15688.htm 

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