Afghan civilian casualties from air strikes rise more than 50 per cent, says UN

KABUL: Civilian casualties from Afghan and American air strikes have risen more than 50 per cent since last year, the United Nations said on Thursday, as troops increase attacks on militants under a new strategy announced by US President Donald Trump in August.

As of the end of September, at least 205 civilians had been killed and 261 wounded this year in air strikes in Afghanistan, U.N. investigators said in a quarterly report.

At least 38 per cent of those casualties were caused by international military forces, while the majority were attributed to the Afghan Air Force, which has begun to conduct more attacks on its own.

More than two thirds of the civilian victims were women and children, the report said.

In September, US warplanes dropped more bombs than in any single month since 2010, driven largely by Trump’s strategy of trying to reassert pressure on militants after several years of drawdown by foreign troops.

A spokesman for the US military command did not immediately comment on the report. — Reuters