A new study by the Costs of War Project at Brown University reports thatthe civilian death toll in Afghanistan increased under US President DonaldTrump.
The study architect Neta C. Crawford writes that as Trump relaxed militaryauthorization rules for airstrikes in 2017, “the number of civilians killedby international airstrikes increased about 330 percent from 2016, the lastfull year of the Obama administration, to 2019, the most recent year forwhich there is complete data from the United Nations.”
According to the study, going back even further, between 2016 and 2017, USand Afghan government forces killed “an average of 582 civilians eachyear,” a number which rose by nearly 95 percent from 2017 to 2019, when anaverage of 1,134 civilians were killed annually.
Even after the US-Taliban peace deal in February, the study finds, adecline in US bombing has led to the US-sponsored Afghan Air Force killing156 people and injuring 193 through September alone, “exceeding its totalharm to civilians compared to 2019.”
The US Forces-Afghanistan Spokesman Col Sonny Leggett in a statementrejected the report as one-sided.
“We disagree with the one-sided analysis presented in “Costs of War,” whichrelies on disputed data and ignores civilian casualties caused by Talibanand ISIS attacks,” Leggett said. “This includes ongoing Taliban use of carbombs, IEDs, rockets and targeted killings to intimidate, harass andinstill fear across Afghanistan.”
As cited by UNAMA in their most recent quarterly report, civiliancasualties caused by US airstrikes “all but ceased” since Feb. 29, the USforces spokesman said.
He added that the same report attributed more than 3,400 civiliancasualties to “anti-government elements,” including Daesh and the Taliban.
“We take seriously our duty to train our Afghan counterparts on civiliancasualty prevention measures, and we have observed an extraordinary amountof effort and care in their operations. As we have said many times,violence by all sides must reduce substantially to allow the peace processto take hold,” he said.
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