Afghan Civilian Death Toll Spikes as Another Round of Withdrawal Talks Begin

The civilian death toll in Afghanistan's war with the Taliban spiked again in July, just ahead of the latest round of peace talks that could lead to U.S. troop withdrawals.

More than 1,500 civilians were killed or wounded in July, about half of them by improvised explosive devices, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a report Saturday. The monthly death toll was the highest this year and the most since May 2017, UNAMA said.

UNAMA attributed the rise in civilian casualties to an increase in "indiscriminate Taliban attacks in urban areas" and suggested that the stepped-up violence was a tactic to gain leverage in the peace talks, convened Saturday in Doha, Qatar by U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad, the Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation.

"I call on all parties not to ramp up military operations thinking that doing so will give them a stronger position in talks about peace," Tadimichi Yamamoto, the UN's Special Representative for Afghanistan, said in a statement.

One of the Taliban attacks cited was on an Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) facility in central Ghazni province on July 7, resulting in 174 civilian casualties -- more than 80 of them children, UNAMA said.

There were also several high-profile attacks in July for which no party claimed responsibility, the report said. One such attack with remote-controlled IEDs and militants in suicide vests took place in Kabul on July 28, killing at least 21 civilians and wounding 50 others.

The report noted that U.S. Forces Afghanistan, as well as the Afghan government and the Taliban, often challenge the accuracy of civilian casualty counts. But UNAMA officials stated that it "has employed a consistent and rigorous methodology in its documentation of civilian casualties."

The mounting civilian death toll lent urgency to the eighth and most recent round of peace talks between Khalilzad and Taliban representatives. The Taliban has thus far refused to negotiate with the Kabul government, calling it a "puppet" of the Americans.

In a Twitter post late Friday, Khalilzad said "The Taliban are signaling they would like to conclude an agreement. We are ready for a good agreement."

That prospective agreement could possibly correspond with President Donald Trump's oft-stated desire to begin withdrawing the estimated 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Citing U.S. officials, the Washington Post reported Thursday that the emerging U.S plan could lower U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan to 8,000 or 9,000 this fall.

However, Navy Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said in a statement Friday that "DoD has not been ordered to draw down. Our strategy in Afghanistan is conditions-based; our troops will remain in Afghanistan at appropriate levels so long as their presence is required to safeguard U.S. interests."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.