ROME, July 3: Civilian deaths due to military action by foreign and local troops in Afghanistan seriously undermine global efforts to bring peace to the war-battered nation, UN chief Ban Ki-Moon said on Tuesday.

“We simply cannot hide from the reality that civilian casualties, no matter how accidental, strengthen our enemies and undermine our efforts,” said Ban, speaking on the second and last day of a UN conference on Afghanistan in Rome.

“We all recognise that the ongoing anti-government insurgency threatens the very foundation of Afghanistan, and that it must be defeated,” he said.

“But in countering it, Afghan and international forces have to act quickly in accordance with international humanitarian law.” The Rome conference is also being attended by Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and representatives from about 20 nations and global institutions, including the World Bank.

Karzai thanked the international community for helping Kabul to take “significant steps to restore our institutions of justice and rule of law to their credibility and functions.” But he warned that “the challenges that are ahead of us remain enormous,” adding: “Corruption is rampant. We do not have enough professional judges and legal workers to run the system. Our fight against terrorism is part of (the) Afghan people's struggle for justice.”

De Hoop Scheffer meanwhile pledged that the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) would do its utmost to prevent civilian deaths in Afghanistan, but underlined but many of the casualties were due to the Taliban practice of using locals as human shields.

“We have to do everything in our ability to avoid civilian casualties. Every single civilian life lost in Afghanistan is one too many,” De Hoop Scheffer told reporters after meeting Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

“No Nato soldier and no coalition soldier will ever intentionally kill civilians,” he said, stressing that the Taliban used civilians as human shields.

“They burn people, they kill women and children,” he added.

According to figures by the UN mission in Kabul, some 600 civilians have died in Afghanistan since the start of this year — half of them falling victim to Afghan and international forces. Prodi on his part urged the international community to redouble efforts to rebuild Afghanistan from the ashes of war, saying its credibility was already compromised.

“We have to multiply our efforts in Afghanistan because Nato's credibility and the UN's capacity to oversee the reconstruction of institutions is today already at stake,” Prodi said.

“Ensuring security in Afghanistan and coordinating all the military forces there to reduce the number of deaths there is an absolute priority,” he said.

The Rome conference is looking at ways to revamp Afghanistan’s judicial system, which is in tatters after almost three decades of war and conflict.

Nearly six years after the fall of the extremist Taliban government, it is corrupt, overburdened and under-resourced, and internationally backed efforts to reform the sector have dragged.

—AFP