Despite all of our efforts to prevent them there have been some civilian deaths in the present offensive in Afghanistan. The official civilian death toll is now 15. Twelve were killed Sunday when two missiles missed their intended targets and impacted a house on the outskirts of Marjah. In this case the civilians were doing what they were instructed to do to stay out of harms way but it was not good enough. An interesting thing is that there were some bodies of Taliban fighters found in the house with them so the Taliban is still using innocent children and civilians as human shields.
In other incidents two Afghan civilians were killed when they approached NATO troops and refused to stop despite being told and signalled to stop. I suspect that they were forced to do this by the Taliban. I can see no other reason for it. I know that I wouldn’t approach anybodies troops who were armed and looking at me funny. Its not a natural or a rational thing to do.
Our custom military ring customers who are in Afghanistan are under a lot of pressure. They are forced to make quick decisions in combat to protect themselves and the enemy is exploiting it.
In the last incident that I know of a civilian was killed when he was caught in the line of fire between NATO and Taliban fighters. I want to think that the Taliban is behind this also because all civilians were warned of the attack so that they would be able to keep out of harms way. Once again it is not natural for anyone to want to be outside during a firefight. Especially if they are not involved in it. My question is what compelled these civilians to be outside during a firefight. It is not a natural thing to do, or a natural place to want to be.
NATO has shifted its strategy to one of not killing innocents rather than one of killing combatants but as you can see innocents still come in harms way in combat. If any of you military ring customers think you have an answer to this situation let us hear it.
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