The Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM [2]) said Feb. 2 that 2010 was the deadliest year for civilians in the country since the US-led invasion of 2001, with more than 2,400 non-combatants killed. Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for more than 60% of the dead, according to the report. "Almost everything related to the war surged in 2010," said the report, noting that the number of Afghan government and foreign forces surged [3] to some 350,000, as the number of "security incidents" rose to more than 100 per week. Between January and December 2010, "at least 2,421 civilian Afghans were killed and over 3,270 were injured in conflict-related security incidents across Afghanistan," the report finds. By comparison, there were 2,332 civilian deaths as a result of the war in 2009.
At least 217 civilians were killed in US/NATO air-strikes, and 192 killed in shooting by these forces, the report finds. Tens of thousands of civilians were also forced to leave their homes by fighting. (AFP [4], Feb. 1)
Note that UN count found 2,412 civilian deaths as a result of the war in 2009 [5].
See our last posts on Afghanistan [6] and the civilian casualties [7].
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