May 04, 2007	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 16, 1428

KABUL: Mounting civilian casualties in military operations against the Taliban are turning already wary Afghans against foreign troops based here and eroding the fragile support for President Hamid Karzai, analysts say.

After days of protests against allegedly innocent victims being killed by international troops, Karzai summoned top generals and diplomats to his palace on Wednesday to reiterate years of complaints over blameless deaths.

“Afghans are human beings too,” he told reporters afterwards. “What we are seeking is value to Afghan lives.” Soon after the meeting, Afghan and UN teams announced their investigations found that around 50 civilians were killed in days of ground fighting and bombing in a remote valley in the western province of Herat.

Also on Wednesday, about 500 university students torched a flag in the eastern province of Nangarhar alleging six civilians were killed by US-led coalition troops on Sunday.

“With every civilian life lost, the Afghan people get more angry,” said Sarah Holewinski, executive director of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, which is based in Washington.

“The US military has a stake in avoiding that kind of resentment. They must now investigate incidents of civilian death following combat operations – and they should ensure the Afghan people see them do it,” she said in a statement.

There is a danger the mounting casualties will play into the hands of the Taliban movement’s efforts against the government and foreign troops, said Nader Nadery, from the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

The extremists were toppled from power in 2001 by the coalition and are waging a campaign of violence and propaganda that tries to portray the international forces as “infidel” invaders and the government as a stooge of the West.

“Incidents causing civilian casualties will no doubt distance people from the international troops and their own government. It's dangerous,” Nadery said.

“It will also provide an easy tool for the Taliban to use against the progress achieved over the past five years,” warned the rights activist.

And civilian casualties threaten to ruin public confidence in the grinding fight against the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies.

“Firstly it undermines the struggle against terrorists,” said parliamentarian Shukria Barakzai. “Secondly such killings turn people against these troops,” she said.

“Obviously the sense of support and cooperation will be replaced by hatred and desire for revenge. It makes it easy for the enemy to use this against us.” There is already simmering resentment among Afghans towards the 50,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan to help the fledgling government forces stabilise the fractured country.

Aggressive soldiers in bullet-proofed convoys regularly force traffic off the roads. They also burst into homes in the middle of the night to conduct searches despite repeated calls from Karzai to work with local authorities and respect Afghan sensibilities.

Anger towards the soldiers erupted into riots in Kabul in May last year after a coalition vehicle lost control and ploughed into civilians cars, killing a handful of passengers.

More recently there has been a steady rise in the number of civilians, including children, shot dead at checkpoints manned by foreign forces who opened fire after their warnings to vehicles to halt are ignored.

Last month a unit of US Marines was withdrawn from Afghanistan after being accused of opening fire indiscriminately on civilians after an ambush in Nangarhar province. About a dozen people were killed, including two children.—AFP