February 01, 2007	Thursday	Muharram 12, 1428

KABUL: More than 1,000 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in 2006, most of them as a result of attacks by the Taliban and other anti-government forces in the country’s unstable south, a rights group said.

At least 100 of those civilian deaths were caused by NATO and US-led troop operations, far below another estimate by an Afghan rights group, Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Tuesday.

In all, more than 4,400 Afghans -- comprising civilians and combatants -- died in conflict-related violence, twice as many as in 2005 and more than in any other year since the US helped oust the Taliban in 2001, the group said.

An Associated Press tally based on reports from Afghan, NATO and coalition officials puts the overall death toll slightly lower, at about 4,000, most of them militants.

NATO, while occasionally releasing tallies of civilian deaths in certain incidents, does not keep overall track of such deaths.

Taliban-led guerrillas launched a record number of attacks last year and engaged in several pitched battles with foreign troops, who now number more than 40,000 -- the most since the fall of the fundamentalist militia.

With warlords and drug traffickers still powerful, Human Rights Watch said Afghan President Hamid Karzai and donor nations have failed to meet promises to improve governance, the economy and security under plans to be reviewed at an international meeting on Afghanistan that began on Tuesday in Berlin.

“Afghanistan hasn’t really met any of the benchmarks” on improving human rights or security, said Sam Zafiri, Asia research director of Human Rights Watch. “Life is so dangerous that many Afghans don’t feel safe enough to go to school, get health care, or take goods to market.”

Human Rights Watch did not explain the methodology it used to arrive at its casualty numbers.

Its figure of 100 civilians killed by foreign troops is far fewer than the 600 tallied by Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission.

The US government said last week it plans to provide another $10.6 billion for Afghanistan, much of it for Afghan security forces.—AP