Afghanistan Blog #8

Some time in the past month, approximately 20 to 30 civilians and 60 or more insurgents were killed in a firefight between Taliban militants and United States military personnel. The United States stated after the two day long battle that they had sent American weapons to bomb several rural building were the Taliban were hiding and regrouping for another attack against the soldiers stationed in Bala Buluk district of the western Farah province in Afghanistan. The attack and the death of the civilians have damaged the already fraying relationship between the Afghan and the United States government. The Taliban’s use civilians as “human shields” came as a blatant disregard for the established “rules of combat” set by the United Nations Security Council. The approximate number of civilian casualties is not truly know because of the lack of recognizable remains after the bombings. The United States used a total of 14 missiles launched from American aircraft, which destroyed all eight of the targeted buildings that were housing the Taliban insurgents. A few days earlier a group of NATO soldiers were attacked by approximately 60 insurgents near the Capital of the Helmand province in Afghanistan. After being attacked the NATO forces called in airstrikes on the buildings that they were being fired at from. In that skirmish it is believed that the bombs killed eight civilians. Later it was discovered that the Taliban was civilians as “human shields”, and the head of the NATO group that was attacked said that he would never have called in the Airstrikes if he knew that the Taliban were civilians as protection.