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Kabul: At least 13 laborers were killed in an air strike by NATO-led ISAF forces in the Nurigram district of eastern Nuristan province on Nov. 26. As ISAF forces, in a press release issued today, says that the allegations are under investigation, provincial governor Tamim Nuristani and local residents and the company the laborers were working with have confirmed killing of 13 laborers in the bombing.

On the same day, a blast by the Taliban insurgents killed two women, three men and wounded five children in Zheri district of southern Kandhar province, confirmed provincial Police Chief Said Agha Saqib.

These are not the first or last incidents, thousands of civilians have been killed in NATO/Coalition air strikes and Taliban blasts and suicide attacks across the country since 2001, when the US-led Coalition Forces ousted the hardliners from Kabul.

Taliban insurgents, believed to be regrouped in Pakistan, have launched a war not only against the foreign troops but also against all the government workers and those they suspect as pro-government. Hundreds of Afghans, doctors, workers, journalists, clerics, engineers, teachers, students and tribal elders have been so far killed, beheaded or abducted by them on the charge of spying' and pro-government' through which they terrorize people and force them to leave the country or cooperate with them rather than the government.

Similarly, NATO and Coalition forces often target civilians in air strikes and some times arrest innocent people on the charge of having contacts with the terrorists'. People have protested against this several times and every time their demand is the same that the troops should conduct their operations with the guide of local authorities and elders.

The exact number of civilian casualties is not known due to the poor communication and hurdles in finding facts in the remote areas where people have still facing lack of food and medicines let alone electricity, roads and access to telephones or mobile phones.

The United Nations, human rights organizations and civil societies have many times condemned killing of civilian people and asked both parties to do their best to prevent civilian casualties but the parties have their own reasons for their activities or operations.

NATO always depend its air strikes saying that the terrorists are a big threat to the peace and they have credible information' for their operations against them. Indeed, the terrorists are a threat to peace, but the question is that why their credible information' suggests killing of civilians?

NATO and Coalition also say that the insurgents often use civilians as human shields when they get entrapped by Afghan and foreign forces.

The Taliban insurgents say that they have the right to kill all the people who support Afghan government. They also say that it is Islamic if civilians do kill in their attacks or suicide bombings because our target is not civilians but foreign forces and we are fighting for our religion'.

Learn more about this author, Abdulhadi Hairan.
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