U.S. steps up Afghan air raids, more civil deaths-report

By Jonathon Burch

KABUL, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The United States has stepped up its use of air strikes in the war in Afghanistan, resulting in a high number of civilian casualties, a human rights group said on Monday.

Anger has mounted in Afghanistan over a spike in civilian casualties in recent weeks and has led to a rift between President Hamid Karzai's government and its Western backers.

"The U.S. ... has increasingly relied on airpower in counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations," the New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report.

"The result has been large numbers of civilian casualties, controversy over the continued use of airpower in Afghanistan, and intense criticism of U.S. and NATO forces by Afghan political leaders and the general public," it said.

The report comes weeks after U.S.-led coalition forces carried out an air strike in the western province of Herat which the Afghan government and the United Nations say killed 96 civilians. The U.S. military says five to seven civilians were killed.

The incident sparked off public protests in the country and caused the Afghan government to call for a review of the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Civilian deaths as a result of foreign air strikes almost tripled in 2007 compared to 2006 with 321 people killed, HRW said in its report. In the first seven months of this year, at least 119 civilians were killed in air strikes, it said.

The figures for this year do not include the Herat incident in August. About 2,500 people, including 1,000 civilians have died in the conflict in the first six months of this year, aid agencies say.



"OPPORTUNITY" STRIKES

The use of air power has increased in Afghanistan over the last three years where foreign and Afghan forces face an insurgency launching an increasing number of deadly attacks.

Twice as many tons of bombs were dropped in 2007 than in 2006, HRW said, citing U.S. Air Force data. More people were killed by air strikes in 2007 than by U.S. or NATO ground fire.

"There has been a massive and unprecedented surge in the use of airpower in Afghanistan in 2008. In the months of June and July alone the U.S. dropped approximately as much as it did in all of 2006," it said.

Civilian casualties are rarely the result of planned air strikes on suspected Taliban targets but almost always occur during "opportunity" strikes in support of ground troops that come under attack, HRW said.

Planned air strikes resulted in civilian deaths once in 2006 and in 2007, it said.

Most civilian casualties during air strikes are also the result of U.S.-led coalition as opposed to NATO-led operations, HRW said. This is because they often operate where the insurgency is strongest and are governed by a different mandate and rules of engagement, it said.

The United States has about 19,000 troops in Afghanistan outside the NATO-led mission who's primary function is to hunt al-Qaeda in the mountainous eastern region bordering Pakistan. There are also minimal contributions to this mission from other nations.

The human rights watchdog urged both the United States and NATO to take all "feasible precautions" to minimize harm to the civilian population. (Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)