KABUL – The Taliban blamed US and Afghan forces for almost 90 percent ofcivilian casualties in 2018, in a report released Friday that suggestedAfghanistan s largest militant group was not responsible for a single deathor injury.
The data — which NATO s Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan dismissedas “propaganda” — follows a record year of bloodshed in the Afghan war,which by some estimates overtook Syria as the world s deadliest conflictzone.
The figures, which the Taliban release every year and are based on”witnesses and primary sources”, showed a total of 4,170 civiliancasualties — 2,294 deaths and 1,876 wounded — last year.
US and “stooge” Afghan government forces caused 3,705 casualties, while theIslamic State group and other “unknown” entities were responsible for 465,the Taliban claimed.
Rejecting the figures, Resolute Support said the Taliban continued “toinflict great harm on Afghan civilians”.
“Over the last few months alone, the Taliban has carried out a host ofatrocities against their own countrymen,” the NATO mission said in astatement.
The Taliban s total number of civilian casualties is around half the numberreported by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)for the first nine months of 2018.
UNAMA s last report in October found the majority of civilian casualtieswere caused by militants, including the Taliban. Its full-year tally isexpected to be released next month.
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The Taliban s report omitted a number of major attacks that deliberatelytargeted civilians and were claimed by the group.
They included a bomb-laden ambulance that detonated in a crowded street inKabul last January, killing more than 100 people and wounding hundreds more.
The Taliban also carried out a devastating raid on a luxury hotel in theAfghan capital in the same month that killed at least 25 people.
And the group has been widely blamed for last month s attack on agovernment compound in Kabul that killed more than 40.
The Taliban s report comes as international efforts to convince themilitants to end the 17-year war gather pace, even as US President DonaldTrump moves to slash the number of American troops in Afghanistan and themilitants slaughter Afghan forces in record numbers. – APP / AFP
