Afghan civilian death toll down 12%: U.N.

KABUL (AP) ― Airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition killed 126 Afghan civilians last year, a nearly 50 percent drop from the year before, the U.N. said Tuesday. The report came a day after President Hamid Karzai banned government forces from requesting foreign air support during operations in residential areas.

The overall civilian death toll in 2012 also declined some 12 percent to 2,754, compared with 3,131 the previous year, according to an annual report by the United Nations Mission to Afghanistan that tracks statistics in the 11-year-old war.

It was the first reduction in casualties in six years.

The report was released as anger is high over an airstrike last week in northeastern Kunar province that killed five children, four women and one man along with four insurgents. Angry that the strike was requested by his national intelligence service, Karzai on Monday ordered government troops to stop asking for foreign air support in residential areas.

The U.N. mission, however, expressed concern about a spike in targeted killings and human rights abuses by armed groups, a worrisome trend as U.S. and other foreign troops prepare to withdraw combat troops by the end of 2014.

The Taliban and other insurgents increasingly targeted civilians throughout the country and were responsible for 81 percent of the civilian casualties last year, the U.N. said. The report said that so-called anti-government elements killed 2,179 civilians and wounded 3,952, a 9 percent increase in casualties from 2011.

By contrast, the number blamed on U.S. and allied forces decreased by 46 percent, with 316 killed and 271 wounded in 2012.

The top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, welcomed the decline in casualties but said ``the human cost of the conflict remains unacceptable.’’

The UNAMA report attributed the overall drop in civilian casualties to a decline in suicide attacks, reduced numbers of airstrikes and other measures taken by the U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan government.

It also cited “an unseasonably harsh winter which impeded insurgent movements and effects of earlier military operations against anti-government elements” and said the number of civilian casualties actually rose in the last half of the year.

Despite the decline, airstrikes remained the cause of most civilian deaths and injuries by the international military forces and 51 of those killed were children, the report said.

The death of civilians during military operations, particularly in airstrikes, has been among a major source of acrimony between Karzai’s government and foreign forces.