KABUL: Civilian casualties caused by Nato and US-led soldiers in Afghanistan -- almost 20 killed in the past few days -- are driving its war-weary populace into the hands of the Taliban, analysts and officials say.

Nine Afghans were killed late Sunday when coalition warplanes bombed their house after a rocket attack. Hours earlier there were angry protests after ten civilians died when US troops opened fire after a suicide ambush.

International troops here have alleged that the Islamist fighters not only target ordinary Afghans in attacks but also use civilians as human shields by hiding in their mud-hut villages.

But experts say that in the short term the foreign forces must find new and less deadly ways of separating militants from the masses -- while in the long term they must focus more on reconstruction.

“Incidents such as the killing of defenceless civilians are a great opportunity for the Taliban to claim they protect the people and that foreign troops and the government are killing them,” analyst Wahid Mujda said.

This shift in feeling was starkly evident after Sunday’s carnage in eastern Nangarhar province when hundreds of demonstrators called for the death of the weak, US-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

“Killing people will, I’m sure, undermine Nato’s mission in Afghanistan,” said outspoken female legislator Shukria Barakzai. “It will even cause an uprising.” Nato and US forces say they have taken steps to avoid civilian casualties, despite the Taliban’s guerrilla campaign being at its toughest since the regime was toppled in late 2001.

They say they are consulting with Afghan security forces and authorities to establish the location and movement of civilians in the most insecure areas.

Advertisements warning Afghans to stay away from Nato and US convoys have appeared on billboards, in newspapers, on television and on the vehicles themselves.

“What the people need is to help us avoid casualties. If they know about enemy activities they should let us know and stay away,” said Maria Carl, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

“When there are operations, we work with local councils to make sure that kind of thing is not happening.” Not that this always works. More than 50 civilians were killed during a major Nato offensive against rebels in southern Kandhar province last September, one of the biggest battles here in five years.

And, nearly 1,000 civilians who died in insurgent-related violence last year were killed by militant attacks.

Wadir Safi, an expert and lecturer at Kabul University, says foreign forces are walking into the insurgents’ trap.

“The Taliban are using populated areas on purpose. They do it to prompt foreign troops to kill civilians, which enables them to use it as propaganda against them,” Safi said.

In Monday’s incident the coalition said militants “knowingly” endangered civilians by entering a populated compound after launching a rocket attack at their base. Five women and three children were among the dead.

Excuses are not enough to stop Afghans feeling more disillusioned, analysts say.

“If they continue to kill civilians they’ll definitely face the same fate as the Russians,” Safi said. The Soviet army invaded Afghanistan in 1979 but was driven out by resistance fighters ten years later.

Safi, also a former cabinet minister, said the Taliban already enjoy support among people living near the southern and eastern border with Pakistan, who share the same Pashtun ethnicity as the fundamentalist movement.

Western nations must concentrate more on providing aid and development to what remains one of the poorest countries on earth, according to the analysts.

When the Nato force took control of the south in the middle of last year reconstruction was meant to be one of its main goals, but it has largely been sidelined by the raging insurgency.

“Nato has been telling the Afghans they are here to help them out with reconstruction. What happened to the reconstruction they had promised? I don’t see it,” Mujda said.—AFP