Contents Links
- Any figures likely far lower than real total
- No entirely independent source for figures, only UN produces monthly and annual totals
- Mis-quoting Human Rights Watch
- Azizabad airstrikes, August 2008 – Why NATO figures are unreliable, based on deliberately flawed methodology
- Farah Airstrikes, May 2009 : Propaganda continued under Obama
- After Farah : Have things changed under McChrystal? ; Kunduz and after ; Conclusion
Any figures likely far lower than real total
When looking at the figures on civilian deaths in Afghanistan it’s important to remember that there is no independent and reliable source of figures that has sufficient resources and security to investigate and record all killings of civilians, especially in a country as large and mountainous as Afghanistan – so any figures are likely to be significantly lower than the real totals.
The two main bodies giving figures are UNAMA and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). Of the two only UNAMA gives monthly and annual totals for the whole country (and only from 2007 on), while the AIHRC does in-depth interviews of Afghans and NATO forces for some cases. The Afghanistan Conflict Monitor of the Simon Fraser University in Australia warns that that “figures released by these agencies likely represent a substantial undercount”.
(Also note that the sources i provide don’t even cover every airstrike that’s been reported in the media between the Azizabad airstrikes in August 2008 and the present.)
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The Afghanistan Conflict Monitor of the Simon Fraser University in Australia, ‘Civilian Casualties’, http://www.afghanconflictmonitor.org/civilian.html
No entirely independent source for figures, only UN produces monthly and annual totals
As the US and its ally the Afghan government are both UN members – and the US is the most powerful member of the UN, even UNAMA figures may be subject to some downward pressure from the US government. This may even be more the case under Obama – who is keen to show civilian deaths caused by NATO in Afghanistan are falling – than under Bush. There has been a fall in the number of civilian casualties from air strikes reported by NATO and the Afghan government according to the media. This may show a genuine fall, as in the past the Karzai
The AIHRC is not as independent as its name might suggest given that its members were all appointed by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President installed by the US. It’s chairperson is a woman – Dr. Sima Samar - who has received death threats from both the Taliban and fundamentalist warlords allied to NATO and would not be allowed to be in any public position if not for NATO governments’ pressure. (I’m completely in favour of women being in public life and Dr. Samar is both brave and the right kind of person to have on the commission) She and her fellow commissioners were appointed by President Karzai, who was appointed by President Bush. She has said she hopes NATO troops will “stay to finish the job you have started”. So if the AIHRC has a bias it’s therefore likely to be more pro-NATO than anti-NATO, though it frequently disputes both Afghan government figures (sometimes saying they’re too high) and NATO claims and figures (saying they’re too low), showing a high degree of independence in practice.
In some cases Amnesty International have talked to village elders to get the names and numbers of civilians killed in an airstrike, or Human Rights Watch have carried out investigations, or International Red Cross staff on the ground have been able to give rough estimates of the scale of civilian deaths, but, though the resulting figures are often higher than UNAMA or AIHRC or afghan government ones when they do investigate an incident, none of these three sources attempt to provide comprehensive figures for civilian deaths in Afghanistan. There is also the Afghan Rights Monitor group, which seems to be genuinely independent of the Afghan government, unlike the AIHRC. ARM figures, like Amnesty figures, are sometimes much higher than AIHRC or UNAMA figures – leading to arguments with UNAMA.
Since Azizabad President Karzai has also set up a commission specifically to investigate airstrikes and this provided figures on the Kunduz strike in October.
In general NATO figures for civilian casualties caused by their airstrikes are the lowest (and least credible given their terrible record of deliberately reducing the true figures in their “investigations”).
However frequently no two sources agree on the number of casualties (especially the case in the Kunduz airstrikes). UNAMA figures are a bit higher than NATO’s. Afghan government figures tend to be very high, at least in high profile cases where large numbers of civilians have been killed, due to public pressure for the true figures. AIHRC and investigations by Amnesty International give the most credible figures as they are usually based on interviews with survivors and village elders and use the best methodology.
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Sources
The Afghanistan Conflict Monitor of the Simon Fraser University in Australia, ‘Civilian Casualties’, http://www.afghanconflictmonitor.org/civilian.html
Independent 25 Jun 2002 ‘Afghanistan loses female minister in row over sharia law’,
Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Commissioners, Dr. Sima Samar,
http://www.aihrc.org.af/English/Eng_pages/Commissioners/Dr_samar.htm
UN News Service 17 Feb 2009 ‘Number of Afghan civilian deaths in 2008 highest since Taliban ouster, says UN’, <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29918&Cr=Afghan&Cr1=civilian+rights
UNOG/UNAMA 31 Jul 2009 ‘AFGHANISTAN: CIVILIAN CASUALTIES KEEP ON RISING, SAYS UN REPORT’, http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/%28httpNewsByYear_en%29/0A22BB5BFE041B76C125760400343AE3?OpenDocument
Mis-quoting Human Rights Watch
In July 2008 a Human Rights Watch researcher was quoted as follows in the New York Times
‘“In their deliberate targeting, the Air Force has all but eliminated civilian casualties in Afghanistan,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst with Human Rights Watch...The greater risk of civilian casualties, Mr. Garlasco said, comes in unplanned targeting, when American and allied troops come under attack unexpectedly and call for airstrikes...In an attempt to help troops on the ground caught up in the fight, there have been situations where they have killed civilians.’”
If that is the case (and it may well be as Garlasco is a former US soldier and experienced HRW investigator) it didn’t stop NATO airstrikes killing large number of civilians in what must have been unplanned attacks over and over again – at Azizabad, Farrah, Kunduz and many other places.
Many people half-quoted or mis-quoted Garlasco to give the impression he was saying NATO had almost entirely ended killings of civilians in air strikes in Afghanistan. He hadn’t. He’d just specified which kinds of airstrikes were killing most civilians.
NYT 23 Jul 2008 ‘Civilian Risks Curbing Strikes in Afghan War’,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/world/asia/23military.html?ex=1374552000&en=432eead6b7d6fae9&ei=5124&partner=digg&exprod=digg (page 1 only except for subscribers) ,
read the full version at http://warvictims.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/afghanistan-civilian-risks-curbing-strikes-in-afghan-war/#more-754
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Azizabad airstrikes, August 2008 – Why NATO figures are unreliable, based on deliberately flawed methodology
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission found that the US military have consistently tried to deny the true number of civilians killed by air strikes in Afghanistan by using deliberately flawed counting methods.
In the worst incident of 2008 under Bush, at Azizabad, US airstrikes after fighting between Taliban and NATO ground forces near Azizabad in Afghanistan killed at least 76 civilians according to a subsequent AIHRC investigation – and 95 according to the Afghan government.
As the issue wouldn’t go way the US military’s figure rose from 7 to 26 civilians killed, still conflicting with UN, Afghan government , AIHRC and Human Rights Watch investigations which showed at least 97 civilians were killed.
In another typically dishonest US military “investigation” a General Callan provided a final US military figure of 33 civilians dead, based on such innovative methodology as counting burials of a whole family in one grave as one civilian casualty (which was false as it’s common to bury families together and in airstrikes often a few lumps of flesh are all that’s left of the bodies) and counting all adult males as Taliban (the same definition of ‘enemy combatant’ used by General Mladic and the Bosnian Serbs at Srebrenica).
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Sources
AFP 26 Aug 2008 ‘US-led force says 5 Afghan civilians killed in strikes’,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/26/2347302.htm
PBS 27 Aug 2008 ‘U.N. Says 90 Civilians Killed in Afghan Airstrike’, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/asia/july-dec08/afghan_08-27.html
Washington Post 29 Aug 2008 ‘Pentagon Reports U.S. Airstrike Killed 5 Afghan Civilians, Not 90’, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/28/AR2008082802203.html
AP 02 Sep 2009 ‘US probe finds fewer Afghan deaths than UN claimed’, http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1A1-D92UJ9FO0.html
Human Rights Watch 08 Sep 2008 ‘“Troops in Contact” - Airstrikes and Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan’, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/09/08/troops-contact-0
Human Rights Watch 14 Jan 2009 ‘Letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on US Airstrikes in Azizabad, Afghanistan’, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/01/14/letter-secretary-defense-robert-gates-us-airstrikes-azizabad-afghanistan
HRW 15 Jan 2009 ‘Afghanistan: US Investigation of Airstrike Deaths ‘Deeply Flawed’,
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/01/15/afghanistan-us-investigation-airstrike-deaths-deeply-flawed
Farah Airstrikes, May 2009 : Propaganda continued under Obama
The Azizabad airstrikes were followed in August 2009 by airstrikes in the province of Farah.
Red Cross staff on the ground reported the strikes continued for 14 hours and had killed dozens of civilians. They and Afghan survivors said that civilians had fled miles from the scene of the fighting, only to be followed and bombed by US planes, apparently believing them to be fleeing Taliban. The US military initially denied any significant civilian casualties. Then Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the Pentagon came out with an imaginative tale in which the Taliban had gone from house to house throwing grenades in to kill civilians – and had then pretended US airstrikes had killed them – and carried the same bodies from one village to another to make it look like there were more than there really were. Seeing that this story wasn’t being bought, they later admitted it wasn’t true.
The US military’s investigation found 20 to 35 civilians had been killed, but as usual this was an unbelievably low figure compared to those provided by more neutral bodies. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission’s investigation gave a figure of 97 civilians killed – 21 women, 65 children and 11 adult men , along with 25 to 30 insurgents.
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Sources
Independent 06 May 2009 ‘Afghans riot over air-strike atrocity’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghans-riot-over-airstrike-atrocity-1681070.html
Independent 06 May 2009 ‘'Dozens die' in Afghan air strikes says Red Cross’,
ICRC News Release 06 May 2009 ‘Afghanistan: ICRC confirms dozens killed in air strikes’, http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/afghanistan-news-060509!OpenDocument
Independent 08 May 2009 ‘US denies 147 Afghan civilians killed’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/us-denies-147-afghan-civilians-killed-1681620.html
IOS 10 May 2009 ‘Patrick Cockburn: Who killed 120 civilians? The US says it's not a story’, http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-who-killed-120-civilians-the-us-says-its-not-a-story-1682310.html
Human Rights Watch 14 May 2009 ‘Afghanistan: US Should Act to End Bombing Tragedies :
Civilian Death Toll in May 3 Airstrikes Shows Previous Measures Inadequate’,
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/05/14/afghanistan-us-should-act-end-bombing-tragedies
Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission 26 May 2009 ‘Press release:Balabolook incident’, http://www.aihrc.org.af/English/Eng_pages/Press_releases_eng/2009/pre_rel_balabluk_eng_26may2009.pdf
Voice Of America 26 May 2009 ‘Rights Group: 97 Afghan Civilians Killed in US Strikes’, http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2009-05/2009-05-26-voa41.cfm?CFID=295738253&CFTOKEN=56801835&jsessionid=00303d86380170fdca4e267160304e615c5a
Reuters 19 Jun 2009 ‘U.S. says Afghan air strikes killed 26 civilians’, http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE55I5Q920090619?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
Reuters 19 Jun 2009 ‘U.S. says Afghan air strikes killed 26 civilians’, http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE55I5Q920090619?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
Dispatches – Afghanistan’s Dirty War, Channel 4 News (UK) 12 Jun 2009, Afghanistan's Dirty War, http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/articles/afghanistans-dirty-war-watch-clips
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After Farah : Have things changed under McChrystal? ; Kunduz and after
After Azizabad Obama appointed a new military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. From now on there would supposedly be a new strategy, airstrikes would be used as little as possible and the number of civilians killed by them would be reduced as a result.
Yet many other NATO airstrikes have also killed civilians since Farah, the worst case so far being a German airstrike on petrol tankers hijacked by the Taliban near Kunduz in September 2009. The Taliban couldn’t use all the fuel themselves, so took what they could transport and told villagers they could take as much as they wanted. A German NATO officer meanwhile called in airstrikes, fearing the Taliban might use the tankers for suicide bombings against NATO forces. General McChrystal, seeing wounded civilians arrive in a hospital, admitted some civilians might have been killed, but unusually gave no figure. President Karzai’s air strike commission gave a figure of 30 civilians killed and 69 Taliban, but said 20 of the Taliban were “unarmed”, bringing the meaning of “Taliban” in its statement into question. Were they Taliban-sympathising civilians or Taliban who had put their weapons down? The Afghan Rights Monitor gave a figure of 60-70 civilians killed, while Afghan village elders gave Amnesty International a list of 83 civilians they said had been killed in the Kunduz strikes.
Unless the US military has turned over an unprecedented new leaf it will be continuing to deny the real numbers killed – and for the months since Azizabad pretty much the only figures available are NATO and Afghan government ones (with the exception of other sources for the Kunduz strikes).
On NATO and recent Afghan government figures Kunduz might look like an isolated incident. During June 2009, beginning almost a month after McChrystal took command, only 10 civilians were killed by NATO airstrikes in major offensives on Taliban held territory; and only 8 in July during similar circumstances . The NATO and Afghan government figures for August were very low too. However given the record of deceit in US military and NATO figures on civilian deaths and the immense pressure the US government can put on Karzai’s government it would be a very trusting, naive or blindly “patriotic” person who took these figures as the real ones without any investigation of them by more reliable sources.
If for instance you look at the US military’s initial claims for Azizabad – 5 civilian deaths – with the AIHRC investigation finding at least 76 or the Afghan government figure of 95 that puts the NATO figure at around one fifteenth to one twentieth of more reliable sources. If you compare their final figure of 33 – its under half of the AIHRC figure and just over a third of the Afghan government one – and they are unlikely to concede such a high proportion of the real figure in cases which have received much less publicity.
Media reports of AIHRC figures mean the total for September 2009 alone must be at least 78 in at least two incidents, which brings the monthly average to higher than the UNAMA figures for January to June 2009 of 200 civilians (or 33 per month) killed by airstrikes in Afghanistan. If we take into account that AIHRC figures would probably be higher than the UNAMA ones the totals per month of civilians killed in airstrikes might be about the same for the months of 2009 before McChrystal took command and the months since he did (assuming the Obama administration has not put pressure on UNAMA to lower the figures).
Alternatively if we reason that Afghan government figures used to be higher than NATO ones the fact that they now agree might indicate that civilian deaths from airstrikes genuinely have fallen
It might be possible to dismiss incidents like the Azizabad, Farah and Kunduz strikes as “freak accidents” if it wasn’t for the fact that they have happened just as frequently as they did under Bush for 7 years – and are merely the worst instances of a common event. For instance on 20th May – mere weeks after Azizabad – the US military was admitted to having killed at least 8 more civilians in a separate airstrike on “Taliban” who turned out not to be. About a fortnight after the strikes on the tankers at Kunduz a group of 6 farmers was killed by another NATO airstrike. For a fuller list of reports on air strikes in Afghanistan see the Afghan Conflict Monitor’s civilian casualties page.
So AP headlines like ‘Western airstrikes kill fewer civilians’ become a bit dubious when you read the rest of the article – which says the sources for the claim were NATO and its allies in the Afghan government – one of the sides in the war (27). It’s true that the Afghan government has given higher figures than NATO for civilian casualties of air strikes in the past, at least where the number of dead was big enough to cause widespread anger among Afghans, but it may be under greater pressure to be “on message” now that the Obama administration has indicated it would prefer to replace Karzai. It's also worth noting that that AP headline was from 10th August 2009. Less than a month later the Kunduz air-strikes happened.
Conclusion
Professor Marc Herold sees the increase in NATO casualties as an indication that the bad publicity and loss of more Afghan public support caused by the high rate of civilians being killed by airstrikes has forced the US military into relying on fighting on the ground and avoiding airstrikes. This is possible, but then there was a 78% increase in NATO casualties in Afghanistan after the first wave of NATO reinforcements under Obama and Brown when we know for certain that airstrikes were killing more civilians than in the same months of the previous year. The cause seems to have been NATO offensives carried out with the new forces available leading to more fighting and more civilian and military casualties. Since we have no figures on civilian casualties since Azizabad other than NATO and Afghan government ones there is no way as yet to tell if NATO are killing less civilians in airstrikes since Azizabad or not. The unprecedented agreement between NATO and the Karzai government on these figures may be due to falling casualties from airstrikes, or it may be due to increased political pressure from the US government on Karzai.
Whichever interpretation you take there is no doubt that the total number of civilian casualties from all causes (not just NATO airstrikes) in Afghanistan rose steadily in 2007 to 2008 under Bush and has continued to rise for the first 6 months of 2009 under Obama compared to the first 6 months of 2008 under Bush (and ditto for the first 10 months of each year). NATO casualties in the first 3 months under Obama, after reinforcements were sent, also rose 78% compared to the last 3 months of 2008. So so far under Obama civilian casualties continue to increase, probably due to more troops being present leading to more fighting. It's true that the proportion of civilian casualties caused by NATO and Afghan government forces has fallen and the proportion killed by their enemies has risen, but civilians are still dying in greater numbers.
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Sources for 'After Farah';'Have things changed under McChrystal; after Kunduz - and - Conclusion
General/ConclusionAfghanistan Conflict Monitor (Simon Fraser University, Australia) – Airstrikes,
http://www.afghanconflictmonitor.org/airstrikes/
UN News Service 17 Feb 2009 ‘Number of Afghan civilian deaths in 2008 highest since Taliban ouster, says UN’, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29918&Cr=Afghan&Cr1=civilian+rights
UNAMA 31 Jul 2009 ‘AFGHANISTAN: CIVILIAN CASUALTIES KEEP ON RISING, SAYS UN REPORT’, http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/%28httpNewsByYear_en%29/0A22BB5BFE041B76C125760400343AE3?OpenDocument
AP/MSNBC 10 Aug 2009 ‘Western airstrikes kill fewer Afghan civilians’, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32362324/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/
United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, Human Rights Unit ‘ Afghanistan : Mid Year Bulletin on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, 2009’, http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/09july31-UNAMA-HUMAN-RIGHTS-CIVILIAN-CASUALTIES-Mid-Year-2009-Bulletin.pdf
UNoCHA IRIN 12 Nov 2009 'AFGHANISTAN: Over 2,000 civilians killed in first 10 months of 2009',
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87003
Guardian 11 Jun 2009 ‘Insurgents are back in force in Afghanistan – and British troops are bearing the brunt’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jun/11/afghanistan-taliban-helmand-uk-troops
Between Azizabad and Farah
= Guardian.co.uk 11 Jul 2008 ‘US air strike wiped out Afghan wedding party, inquiry finds’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/11/afghanistan.usa
NYT 21 Jul 2008 ‘U.S. and NATO Forces Kill 13 Afghans in Strikes Said to Be Mistakes’,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/world/asia/21afghan.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
(9 Afghan police officers killed according to NATO after hit by airstrike when mistaken for Taliban; NATO says 4 civilians killed, 4 wounded by NATO mortar fire, deaths of 3 others “not confirmed” according to NATO)
Sources : After Farah, before Kunduz
Andronkis International - AKI (Rome, Italy) 20 May 2009 ‘Afghanistan: NATO airstrike kills civilians in south’, http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=3.0.3337058473
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