KABUL — The number of civilians killed in Afghanistan’s worsening conflict jumped 39 percent to a new high last year, and more than half of the deaths were inflicted by Taliban insurgents and other militants, the United Nations said Tuesday.
The report said insurgents increasingly use roadside bombs, car bombs and suicide bombers in attacks that are “undertaken regardless of the impact on civilians.”
In the latest such attack, the U.S. military reported that a roadside bomb killed five civilians Monday in Kandahar province.
Two of last year’s worst civilian tolls from insurgent attacks came in a February suicide bombing at a dogfight in Kandahar that the U.N. said killed 67 civilians and a car bombing at the Indian Embassy in July that killed 55 civilians.
Commanders of U.S. and other international troops in Afghanistan have long sought to emphasize how militant attacks kill far more civilians than the soldiers or officials targeted.
The U.N. said a record 2,118 civilians died from violence last year, up from 1,523 in 2007.
Its report blamed insurgent attacks for 55 percent of the deaths — 1,160, compared with 700 in 2007. It said U.S., NATO and Afghan government forces accounted for 39 percent of those killed — 828, compared with 629 in 2007. No responsibility was determined for the remaining 130 deaths.
The U.N. report noted that despite new battlefield rules meant to reduce civilian casualties, U.S., NATO and Afghan troops killed 31 percent more civilians last year than in 2007.
That probably reflects the fact that more foreign troops are in the country.
In Denver
