Civilian deaths in Afghanistan hit a new high in the first half of 2017 with 1,662 killed and more than 3,500 injured, the United Nations said Monday. Deaths in the capital Kabul accounted for nearly 20 percent of the toll, according to the report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which has been … Read more
Afghan security forces were killed at a “shockingly high” rate during what historically has been a winter lull in fighting against the Taliban, a US watchdog said in a report Monday. According to the US government’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), 807 troops from the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces died between … Read more
Children account for one-third of civilian casualties in Afghanistan’s grinding conflict in the first three months of 2017, and are paying an increasingly high price in the fighting, a UN report said Thursday in Kabul. From January to March, 210 children were killed — up 17 percent from the same period last year — and … Read more
Afghan security officials are increasingly employing torture to extract confessions from alleged insurgents, including children, according to a UN report issued Monday that urged Kabul to bring more perpetrators to justice. The most commonly identified forms of abuse included severe beatings to the body and soles of the feet, electric shocks to the genitals, as … Read more