Taliban blames US, Afghan forces for most civilian casualties in 2018

KABUL: The Taliban blamed US and Afghan forces for almost 90 percent of civilian casualties in 2018, in a report released Friday that suggested Afghanistan’s largest militant group was not responsible for a single death or injury.

The data — which NATO’s Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan dismissed as “propaganda” — follows a record year of bloodshed in the Afghan war, which by some estimates overtook Syria as the world’s deadliest conflict zone.

The figures, which the Taliban release every year and are based on “witnesses and primary sources”, showed a total of 4,170 civilian casualties — 2,294 deaths and 1,876 wounded — last year. US and “stooge” Afghan government forces caused 3,705 casualties, while the Islamic State group and other “unknown” entities were responsible for 465, the Taliban claimed. Rejecting the figures, Resolute Support said the Taliban continued “to inflict great harm on Afghan civilians”. “Over the last few months alone, the Taliban has carried out a host of atrocities against their own countrymen,” the NATO mission said in a statement.

The Taliban’s total number of civilian casualties is around half the number reported by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) for the first nine months of 2018.