80 civilians killed in past 3 months: Kofi

KABUL to exercise utmost care not to harm civilians in their operations.

The panel’s head Fauzia Kofi told a press conference in Kabul 80 civilians, most of them women and children, had been killed across the country over the past three months, citing information from the UN, human rights and civil society groups.

“In Afghanistan, there is a guerrilla war, so the Afghan government should change its war tactics and avoid attacking militants in residential areas,” Kofi said in a reference to a airsttrike that killed 17 civilians, including a dozen children and women, in Shigal district of Kunar on April 6.

On Monday, eight civilians, four of them women, were killed when a makeshift bomb ripped through a tractor-trolley in southern Zabul province.

Kofi said International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops should target militant hideouts and places where their leadership was hiding out instead of chasing them in residential areas.

The lawmaker also said the Taliban used civilians as human shield during clashes with security forces.

“If the Taliban continue such actions, the hatred among people against them would increase,” she concluded.

myn/ma

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