By Andrew Gray
Reuters, 18 May 2007
WASHINGTON - NATO is looking at its tactics in Afghanistan to reduce civilian casualties, which have prompted protests from President Hamid Karzai, the alliance's top commander said on Friday.
U.S. Army Gen. John Craddock said NATO understood that civilian casualties cost the alliance credibility among local people whose support was vital to defeating Islamist insurgents from the Taliban movement.
"Every time that happens, someone walks away, an Afghan citizen, with a bad feeling towards either NATO or the United States," said Craddock, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander.
"That's what we don't want to happen."
Dozens of civilians have been killed in recent weeks in operations by NATO forces or a separate U.S.-led task force fighting the Taliban, according to Afghan officials.
The rising civilian death toll has triggered protests by Afghans demanding the resignation of the pro-U.S. Karzai and the expulsion of American troops from Afghanistan.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force has some 37,000 troops in Afghanistan, around 15,000 of them from the United States, according to the Pentagon.
Karzai said this month that Afghanistan could no longer accept civilian casualties and a U.S. military commander apologized for the killing of 19 civilians during an attack in March.
Craddock said NATO was looking at all the incidents where civilian casualties had been reported.
He said a preliminary review by the top NATO commander in Afghanistan indicated the military had in most cases followed its rules of engagement, which specify when force can be used.
The rules of engagement would not change, Craddock said, but commanders may decide to change the way they operate.
"It may change tactics, techniques and procedures," he said at a breakfast meeting with reporters in Washington.
Craddock said NATO forces faced difficult choices, particularly if they came under attack. Insurgents could take refuge in buildings and NATO commanders had to decide whether to launch air strikes which would kill enemy forces but also risked civilian casualties.
"This is imperfect. If you haven't ever done it, you don't understand the fog and the friction," he said.
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Citation: Andrew Gray. "NATO reviews Afghan tactics to cut civilian deaths," Reuters, 18 May 2007.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N18208357.htm
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