The increase suggested
that US and NATO efforts to hold down civilian casualties was showing some
success.
Also Sunday, the bodies of
10 members of a medical team - six Americans, two Afghans, one German and a
Briton - were flown to Kabul from the northern province of Badakhshan, where
they were gunned down three days ago at the end of a humanitarian mission.
The Taleban claimed
responsibility and accused the group of spying and seeking to convert Muslims
to Christianity.
The Taleban and their
allies were responsible for 68 percent of the at least 1,325 civilian deaths
recorded by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, the organization
said at a press conference. Twenty-three percent were ascribed to NATO or
Afghan government forces.
Responsibility for the
remaining 9 percent could not be determined because they occurred in areas that
were too dangerous for a thorough investigation, the commission said.
NATO and Afghan government
forces have accelerated military operations in the Taliban's southern
heartland, a move that brought a sharp increase in allied casualties.
Last month a record 66
American troops were killed, compared with 44 for July last year. A record
total of 104 international troops, including Americans, died in June, more than
triple the figure for the same month in 2009.
The top US and NATO commander,
Gen. David Petraeus, has maintained strict curbs on air power and heavy weapons
implemented last year by his predecessor, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Those
measures have tamped down the number of civilian deaths but have raised
complaints from the ranks that they put soldiers' lives at risk and give an
advantage to the Taleban.
Still, a daily drumbeat of
violence continues: Three Afghan civilians were killed by insurgent attacks or
bombs on Saturday, while five NATO service members — three Americans and two Danes
— were killed the same day, the military coalition said.
Most of the civilian
deaths occurred in the Taleban's southern heartland with bombs the biggest
single killer, the commission said.
Insurgent bombs were
responsible for 425 civilian deaths, with more than 200 of them in June and
July. Fighting in Afghanistan traditionally increases during summer months.
Another 122 people were
killed in suicide attacks and 197 either directly assassinated or caught in the
crossfire of assassination attempts, according to the report.
In first seven months of
2009, 1,252 civilians were killed — 67 percent of them by insurgents and 23
percent by government-allied forces, the group said.
The UN is expected to
release its own figures on civilian casualties for the first six months of the
year in coming weeks. In all of 2009, at least 2,412 Afghan civilians were
killed in fighting, according to the UN.
That was up 14 percent
from 2008.
The bodies of the
assassinated medical team, which included three women, were returned to Kabul
aboard helicopters of the Afghan counternarcotics agency. Names of most of the
foreigners have not been released pending formal identification.
Officials said the victims
included team leader Tom Little, an optometrist from Delmar, New York who had
lived in Afghanistan for about 30 years, and Dr. Karen Woo, who gave up a job
in a private clinic in London to do humanitarian work in Afghanistan.
The team was attacked
while returning to Kabul after a two-week mission in the remote Parun Valley of
Nuristan province about 260 km north of Kabul.
The
bullet-riddled bodies were found on Friday near three four-wheeled drive
vehicles in a wooded area just off the main road through a narrow valley in the
Kuran Wa Munjan district of Badakhshan.
