Laraib Nisar
With the start of the US troops’ withdrawal process, the level of violence in Afghanistan has increased rapidly. Additionally, the withdrawal process has emboldened the Taliban to such an extent that they’ve started retaking many districts from government forces. With the increased Taliban advances and fighting, the civilians are bearing the brunt of the violence. The Afghan forces have been increasing operations against the Taliban, which has launched a major nationwide offensive in the wake of the withdrawal of foreign troops over the past few months. Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani has blamed the country’s worsening security situation on the United States’ abrupt decision to withdraw its troops.
Tadin Khan, the former police chief of Kandahar and a member of the High Council of the National Reconciliation (HCNR), on Wednesday stated that the Taliban “does not believe in human rights,” saying the group has killed potentially up to 900 people in Kandahar province in the past month and a half.
This is in line with the data represented by United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in its mid-year report for the year 2021 which was released last week. The report presented shocking findings. According to the report, Civilian casualties in Afghanistan in the first half of 2021 reached record levels, including a particularly sharp increase in killings and injuries since May when international military forces began their withdrawal and the fighting intensified following the Taliban’s offensive.
The report also warned that without a significant de-escalation in the wave of violence Afghanistan is going through, it is highly likely that in 2021 Afghanistan will witness the highest ever number of documented civilian casualties in a single year since UNAMA records began. The report documents 5,183 civilian casualties (1,659 killed and 3, 524 injured), which shows a 47 per cent increase compared with the same period in 2020.
Deborah Lyons, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan stated “the Taliban and Afghan leaders should take heed of the conflict’s grim and chilling trajectory and its devastating impact on civilians. The report provides a clear warning that unprecedented numbers of Afghan civilians will perish and be maimed this year if the increasing violence is not stemmed.”
Since the report attributed around 40 percent civilian casualties to Anti-Government Elements (particularly Taliban), it was largely rejected by the Taliban, who stated that UNAMA’s civilian casualty report is biased and far from reality.
According to the Taliban, no civilian was deliberately targeted by the Mujahideen of Islamic Emirate over the past six months and no attacks were launched with the intention of causing civilian harm. However, the Kabul administration did carry out indiscriminate mass bombings, artillery attacks and raids on populated areas and deliberately targeted civilians, destroyed hundreds of homes, markets and public infrastructure, and martyred and injured thousands of civilians including elders, children and women.
The Taliban also clarified that if any of Taliban-launched attack did cause civilian losses, it must have been because of old unexploded ordinances, hence accidental and non-deliberate. While claiming the report to be fake and based on malign enemy propaganda, they called upon UNAMA to safeguard the issue of civilian casualties from propaganda and to approach it as a genuine humanitarian cause and not base their reports on enemy intelligence and propaganda material but to exert real on-ground efforts to investigate the cases from up close and make use of impartial sources so that civilian casualties can truly be prevented and the real culprits and criminals not acquitted.
Though the Afghan President presented a security plan before the Parliament on Monday August 02, 2021, and said the situation in the war-torn Afghanistan will be “under control within six months”, adding that the US has pledged its full support, but it must be kept in mind that the only way to bring comprehensive and durable peace in Afghanistan is through intra-Afghan consensus and unity. Afghan stakeholders should try to understand that the desired outcome cannot be achieved without an intra-Afghan agreement. Instead of involving in a blame game over who caused more civilian damage, both the sides should try to sit on table, and discuss ways to control this viciousness in the future, while leaving the past behind.
The author Laraib Nisar is a Defense and Strategic Studies’ graduate, working as a Program Coordinator at Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), Islamabad.
