KABUL: The
Taliban blamed US and
Afghan forces for almost 90 per cent of
civilian casualties in 2018, in a
report released on Friday that suggested Afghanistan’s largest militant group was not responsible for a single death or injury.The data — which NATO’s Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan dismissed as “propaganda” — follows a record year of bloodshed in the
Afghan war, which by some estimates overtook Syria as the world’s deadliest conflict zone.The figures, which the
Taliban release every year and are based on “witnesses and primary sources”, showed a total of 4,170
civilian casualties — 2,294 deaths and 1,876 wounded — last year.US and “stooge”
Afghan government
forces caused 3,705 casualties, while the Islamic State group and other “unknown” entities were responsible for 465, the
Taliban claimed.Rejecting the figures, Resolute Support said the
Taliban continued “to inflict great harm on
Afghan civilians”.“Over the last few months alone, the
Taliban has carried out a host of atrocities against their own countrymen,” the NATO mission said in a statement.The Taliban’s total number of
civilian casualties is around half the number reported by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) for the first nine months of 2018.UNAMA’s last
report in October found the majority of
civilian casualties were caused by militants, including the Taliban. Its full-year tally is expected to be released next month.The Taliban’s
report omitted a number of major attacks that deliberately targeted civilians and were claimed by the group.They included a bomb-laden ambulance that detonated in a crowded street in Kabul last January, killing more than 100 people and wounding hundreds more.The
Taliban also carried out a devastating raid on a luxury hotel in the
Afghan capital in the same month that killed at least 25 people.And the group has been widely blamed for last month’s attack on a government compound in Kabul that killed more than 40.The Taliban’s
report comes as international efforts to convince the militants to end the 17-year war gather pace, even as US President Donald Trump moves to slash the number of American troops in Afghanistan and the militants slaughter
Afghan forces in record numbers.
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