A new report released by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reveals that the Taliban is responsible for 76 percent of a dramatic increase in Afghan civilian deaths during the past year.
The report titled “Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict,” is the latest piece of evidence that Taliban-caused violence is on the rise – up by 31 percent from 2009. And women and children are bearing the brunt of the increased violence. According to the report, 51 percent more children and six percent more women have been killed by the Taliban and related organizations.
“We are concerned,” Staffan de Mistura, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, said in a press conference Tuesday.
“We are very concerned about the future because the human cost of the conflict is unfortunately being paid too heavily by civilian Afghans,” said Mistura. “And that’s why this report is a wake-up call.”
Mistura also took the time to warn those responsible, saying that the rise in civilian deaths jeopardizes future negotiations with the country. “If anyone is trying to reach some type of future of Afghanistan that we all are striving and hoping together with Afghans to reach, it cannot be done over a mountain of civilian deaths.”
The wake-up call comes not a moment too soon. In the last week alone, the Taliban have very publicly been responsible for at least 11 civilian deaths. On Monday, Taliban members tortured a pregnant woman before shooting her in the head. Her crime? Getting pregnant out of wedlock.
And last week, the Taliban killed ten medical missionaries, six of them Americans. Zabihulla Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban, said the medical workers were killed for espousing Christianity.
As The Daily Caller previously reported, the Taliban was notably left off a recent State Department report that lists Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). Neither the Bush administration nor the current Obama administration ever designated the Taliban an actual terrorist organization even though the U.S. is at war in Afghanistan and the Taliban have repeatedly engaged in terrorist activity.
Adding the extremist group to the list, however, is not hard. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, along with the Attorney General and Treasury Department, would have to identify a group they wish to designate and submit a recommendation to Congress.
Congress then has seven days to object. If they don’t, the group gets added to the list.
So why hasn’t the U.S. government actively pursued designating the Taliban as an FTO? Raymond Tanter, former member of President Reagan’s national security team, told TheDC that the State Department may have some reasons — however convoluted some may consider them. The biggest reason, said Tanter, is probably the hope for diplomacy to prevail.
“First, not designating the Taliban provides Afghan President Karzai with maximum diplomatic flexibility to reach out to the Taliban while the USG [U.S. government] maintains plausible deniability that it is doing the same,” said Tanter.
“The UN Consolidated List established and maintained by the 1267 Committee with respect to al Qaeda, OBL [Osama Bin Laden], and the Taliban arguably could make it unnecessary for the USG also to designate the Taliban,” Tanter added as a possible second reason. “But because Washington designates al Qaeda, which is also on the UN list, hiding behind the UN list doesn’t cut the mustard.”
Tanter also pointed out that the U.S. never recognized Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, which is why the country was never designated a state sponsor of terrorism. Thus, there is a chance that the State Department does not believe it is necessary to designate the Taliban a FTO now.
“Like the second rationalization, however, the third makes little sense,” said Tanter.