KABUL — Taliban suicide bombings and other attacks caused Afghan civilian deaths to soar last year to the highest annual level of the war, a United Nations report found Wednesday, while deaths attributed to allied troops dropped nearly 30 percent. Many Afghans now blame the violence on the Taliban rather than on foreign forces.
A decline in NATO killings of civilians has become a key U.S. goal for winning over the Afghan people. Public outrage over rising death tolls prompted the top commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, last year to tighten the rules on the use of airstrikes and other weaponry if civilians are at risk.
The U.N. said 2,412 civilians were killed in 2009 — a 14 percent increase over the 2,118 who died in 2008. Nearly 70 percent of civilian deaths last year, or 1,630, were caused by the insurgents, the report found.
NATO and allied Afghan forces were responsible for 25 percent of the deaths, or 596, the U.N. said, down from 39 percent, or 828, in 2008. The remainder could not be attributed to either side: civilians caught in the crossfire or killed by unexploded ordnance, the report said.
Some Afghan human-rights activists said the actual death toll was probably higher because many deaths go unreported. The Associated Press
