BREAKING NEWS: US-NATO AIR STRIKES ARE KILLING CIVILIANS IN AFGHANISTAN

WASHINGTON -- Ramped-up U.S. and NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan are causing an increased civilian death toll, raising concerns about the fallout from civilian deaths on the war effort against the Taliban insurgency, according to a major new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) released here Monday.

Report: U.S.-NATO Airtrikes Over Afghanistan Are Killing Innocent Civilians

By Ali Gharib, IPS NewsPosted on September 12, 2008, Printed on September 14, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/98619/

The 43-page report, "Troops in Contact: Airstrikes and Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan," warned that the cost in civilian casualties caused by the increase in bombings goes well beyond the loss of human life and could put the nearly seven-year U.S.-NATO war effort at risk.

"The harm caused by airstrikes is not limited to the immediate civilian casualties," said the report, which also cited the destruction of homes and property and the displacement of their civilian occupants caused by the bombing.

"Civilian deaths from airstrikes act as a recruiting tool for the Taliban and risk fatally undermining the international effort to provide basic security to the people of Afghanistan," said Brad Adams, HRW's Asia director of HRW.