Figures are often at least partially based on secondary information, such as reports issued by government officials, the media, or other organizations working in Afghanistan, which can be difficult to corroborate. Consequently, the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan is uncertain despite the recent proliferation of estimates.

According to what little information is available, U.S. and NATO-led forces appear to be responsible for a growing number of civilian deaths. Despite its reluctance to quantify the situation, the United Nations publicly reported on June 2 that its data indicates "the number of (civilian) deaths attributed to pro-government forces marginally exceeds that caused by anti-government forces."

U.S. and NATO officials stress that insurgent fighters hide among the civilian population and use them as human shields, but the fact remains that whatever the causes, this rising civilian death rate undermines the strategic goals of the United States and its allies.

The growing perception that Western forces are unconcerned with, and a direct threat to, the safety of civilians makes the Afghan population less inclined to side with the West against the Taliban. Also, Afghans will be less likely to support a government seen as aiding or cooperating with Western forces.

Hence, the recent statements by President Hamid Karzai reprimanding U.S. and NATO forces for their apparent disregard for Afghan civilian life. Tensions over the issue not only threaten the relationship between the Afghan and coalition governments, but among coalition members themselves as they debate an appropriate response to the mounting toll.

At the moment, U.S. and NATO forces seem unable or unwilling to adopt tactics less lethal to the civilian population. Expressions of regret and reiterations of respect by the military sound increasingly empty as U.S and NATO air strikes continue to attack residential buildings believed to contain Taliban insurgents, but that time after time are found to also house civilians.

An International Security Assistance Force spokeswoman was recently quoted as saying, "We are looking closely at our air operations, but it would not be something we would be looking to change at this point." She cited the limited number of troops available as a primary reason for maintaining the current role of air power in the conflict.

The issue has spurred a number of groups and organizations to begin tallying Afghan civilians killed this year. The British Agencies Afghanistan Group estimated somewhere between 400 and 500 civilians were killed between January and the end of May. The Afghanistan NGO Safety Office reports 452 civilian deaths during the same time period, 189 of which were caused by U.S. and NATO forces.

The Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief reported that pro-government forces were responsible for 230 civilian deaths in 2007. On July 3, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission figures for 2007: more than 270 civilian deaths caused by international military operations out of a total of at least 540.

The U.N. said of 593 total civilian deaths in 2007, 314 were caused by international or Afghan military action. The highest number of civilians killed in U.S. and NATO operations this year was reported by Marc Herold of New Hampshire University, who estimated somewhere between 388 and 523 deaths between Jan. 1 and June 22.

earlier related report
The costs of air bombardment
Carl Conetta, co-director of the Project for Defense Alternatives, which researches security policy and its challenges, estimates anywhere from 1,000 to 1,300 Afghan civilian deaths were due to U.S. aerial bombardment between Oct. 7, 2001, and Jan. 10, 2002. Conetta attributes what appears to be a minimum of 3,000 additional civilian deaths to the impact of the conflict on the nation's refugee and famine crises.

Studies by Conetta and Marc Herold of New Hampshire University were based exclusively on media reports and are evidently the only attempts that have been made to quantify Afghan civilian deaths during the outbreak of war in 2001.

No annual estimates are currently available for the subsequent years 2002 through 2005, although Human Rights Watch and ANSO are reportedly in the process of back-cataloging information collected prior to 2006. In the organization's January World Report 2007, Human Rights Watch asserts that the number of Afghans killed in insurgency-related violence in 2006, estimated in the report as at least 1,000, was "twice as many as in 2005 and more than any other year since the 2001 fall of the Taliban."

A more detailed report released in April estimated at least 899 total insurgency-related civilian deaths, but described the figure as conservative. The estimate drew from a wide range of sources -- the group's own research and interviews, ANSO reports, media reports, statements by government officials, NGOs, and spokesmen of insurgent groups -- and is arguably the most substantiated figure currently available for 2006.

Amnesty International's 2006 estimate of 1,000 insurgency-related civilian deaths was based on information provided in government documents and media reports.

A British Agencies Afghanistan Group employee gave an offhand estimate of about 1,000 as well. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported 670 civilian deaths in 2006. The figure is based on information provided by Afghan government officials.

A number of other organizations started keeping track of insurgency-related civilian deaths in 2007. In a May 28, 2007, press briefing, Chief of Human Rights at the U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan Richard Bennett announced the development of a civilian casualties database. He warned, however, that much of the information available is "second- or third-hand" and, thus, unverified. U.N. officials have recently avoided issuing public estimates, emphasizing the difficulties involved in collecting and corroborating information. A UNAMA official said the real count could likely be higher.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force is also tracking civilian deaths, apparently through its medical facilities, but a press officer warned that their numbers "might not be entirely accurate." ISAF does not release estimates to the public.

NATO accounts of civilians killed in individual incidents are often inconsistent with estimates from Afghan officials. For example, a NATO spokesman was quoted in a July 2, 2007, New York Times article regarding recent airstrikes in Helmand Province as saying, "we want to make it clear that we at this point believe the numbers (of civilians killed in the incident) are a dozen or less."

Afghan officials, however, reported that the strikes resulted in 45 civilian deaths. Elsewhere in the province, barely three days earlier, Afghan officials reported up to 60 civilians killed in fighting and U.S.-led airstrikes. A NATO spokesman said that the military could not confirm "numbers that large" and issued an often-used statement about enemy fighters willingly endangering civilian lives. A U.S. government news release acknowledged that some civilians were killed in the attacks but did not include an estimated number.

When questioned about whether or not the Department of Defense maintains any records of Afghan civilian deaths, a DOD official stated that they maintain documentation on U.S. military personnel only.

The British Ministry of Defense replied similarly to an inquiry under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, stating that it "does not maintain records that would enable a definitive number of civilian fatalities to be recorded."

Though figures issued by local Afghan officials are often cited in the media, it is unclear whether the Afghan government keeps centralized records of civilian casualties, which would enable it to issue annual estimates.

The difficulties in collecting accurate information on civilian casualties in Afghanistan have been compounded by the fact that only recently has the issue been given the attention it deserves. The first annual estimates that attempt to include all insurgency-related civilian deaths came out in 2007 for the previous year, leaving five years during which the U.S. and Afghan governments, human rights groups and other non-governmental organizations, and the media did not provide the information to the public.

This year's increased efforts to monitor the situation and to review conditions in the past may reflect on the fact that more civilians are becoming casualties of the war; hopefully, this also shows an increased awareness of the issue's serious implications for the war's ultimate outcome. The failure of those supporting the Karzai government -- particularly the U.S. government and NATO -- to collect or make information on the issue public suggests a refusal to acknowledge the negative impacts this war is having on Afghanistan, and perhaps, the grave direction it's headed. earlier related report
by Stefan Nicola
Berlin (UPI) July 25 - Westerners in Afghanistan are under an increasing terror threat: On Wednesday, one of 23 South Korean hostages was reportedly killed as an ultimatum for his life ran out, and a Danish journalist was briefly abducted. Moreover, two Germans were abducted last week -- one of them is dead, with the German government currently in talks to save the life of the remaining hostage.

On Wednesday morning, first reports of a new kidnapping surfaced: An unidentified journalist and his translator had gone missing in Afghanistan.

The editor of the German news magazine Stern wrote later that morning in an e-mail message to his staff that Christoph Reuter, a well-known Middle East and Afghanistan expert who has written a book on suicide bombers and regularly contributes to the magazine, couldn't be reached. He was apparently touring Afghanistan.

"We are very worried" that Reuter was the kidnapped journalist, wrote Thomas Osterkorn, Stern's editor in chief.

But when the journalist was released later Wednesday, Spiegel Online said the man was actually TV journalist from Denmark Khwaja Najibullah, of Afghan origin.

The latest abduction scare demonstrates how severely the German public and the media react to bad news from Afghanistan.

On July 18 two German engineers working on reconstruction projects were kidnapped in Wardak province, southwest of the capital Kabul, and one of the men died two days later. He was suffering from diabetes, and reports said he had a heart attack. However, the dead body was also pierced by several gun bullets -- the Taliban said they executed him because the German government did not pull out its troops from Afghanistan.

The remaining hostage is still in the hands of his kidnappers, but a special team of the German Foreign Ministry is working with Afghan government officials to get the man, who reportedly has been severely weakened because of the harsh conditions of the abduction, released as quickly as possible.

Kidnappings are nothing new to the government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel: Several people were kidnapped over the past two years in Iraq. Most of them have returned home unharmed. It was speculated that Berlin paid large sums of ransom, a rumor that may have triggered other abductions, observers say.

In Afghanistan, however, sheer terror at the moment seems to be worth more than money.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and the U.S.-led anti-terror mission Operation Enduring Freedom are trying to win a battle against the Taliban that is becoming increasingly uphill, last but not least because of a rising number of terror attacks and kidnappings.

A group of 23 Korean church volunteers is still in the hands of the Taliban as an ultimatum for the life of the hostages was running out Wednesday and a yet-unconfirmed report says one was killed. The Taliban wants to pressure Kabul into releasing captured Taliban leaders, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pledged not to swap prisoners for hostages again; when he did so in March to free an Italian journalist, he came under severe fire.

"It is a strategy of the Taliban to target journalists and foreigners from the West as a way exert pressure on governments (in Europe)," Michael Lueders, a German Afghanistan expert, said Tuesday. "The aim of the kidnappers is to end the Western engagement in Afghanistan. ... It is very clearly an 'Iraqization' of the situation in Afghanistan."

Germany's government over the past few days has stood fast by its Afghanistan commitment. Merkel, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung have all made statements to keep the German soldiers in Afghanistan.

More than 3,000 Bundeswehr troops are stationed with ISAF, mainly in the relatively peaceful northern provinces. Germany has led the Provincial Reconstruction Teams in the north and has been very successful in building up infrastructure, schools and other municipal institutions.

Yet after the recent abductions and a large suicide bombing in a busy market square in Kunduz that killed three German soldiers, the popularity of the mission has sunken to an all-time low. Weeks before the suicide bombing, German aid workers were killed in an ambush.

Germany's population is traditionally pacifist and uneasy about participating in casualty-heavy missions. In 2003 Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was re-elected in part because he promised to keep German soldiers out of Iraq.

Germany's contribution to ISAF and OEF is up for parliamentary renewal this fall, and observers already predict a controversial debate.

"The pressure is rising on German politicians to pull out of Afghanistan," Lueders said over the weekend.

On Wednesday, he added that only the big cities are controlled by the international forces, while the mountains and the countryside are in rebels' hands.

"(NATO) is in a war that can't be won," he stated.

(Elise Szabo is a research assistant at the Center for Defense Information, a Washington think tank.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

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