AFGHANISTAN: NATO force rejects rapporteur’s charge on civilian killings

NATO force rejects rapporteur’s charge on civilian killings

Agence France Presse

The NATO force in Afghanistan rejected Sunday charges by a UN rapporteur of complacency in investigating civilian casualties in counterinsurgency operations and that it had killed 200 civilians this year.

The toll presented last week by the special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Philip Alston, was “far higher than can be supported by serious analysis,” NATO spokesman Mark Laity told reporters.

“We would say it is in the low double figures,” Laity said.

AFGHANISTAN: 5 civilians, 1 US coalition member killed in blasts in southern Afghanistan

5 civilians, 1 US coalition member killed in blasts in southern Afghanistan

By NOOR KHAN
Associated Press

A suicide bomber blew himself up next to a police convoy in southern Afghanistan, killing four civilians and wounding eight other people, an official said.

A U.S. coalition member and another civilian died in a separate roadside blast Sunday, also in the south.
The suicide bomber was targeting the district police chief in Musa Qala in Helmand province, but instead killed four civilians, said provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal. Eight other people, including five policemen were wounded, he said.

WORLD: Conference opens in Dublin to ban cluster bombs

Conference opens in Dublin to ban cluster bombs

By Robin Millard
Agence France Presse

Representatives from around 100 countries opened a 12-day conference Monday in a bid to agree a global ban on cluster bombs, one of the most lethal weapons facing civilians caught up in conflict.

The talks, at Dublin’s Croke Park Gaelic sports stadium, is aiming for a wide-ranging pact that would completely wipe out the use, production and stockpiling of cluster bombs by its signatories.