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Kabul: Attacks, airstrikes and operations by insurgents, the US and Nato have killed 1,445 Afghan civilians this year, a 40 per cent increase over 2007, the UN said on Tuesday.
The Interior Ministry, meanwhile, said militants have killed 720 police in the last six months. Amid the countrywide deterioration in security, a spike in abductions has also been felt over the past year.
The UN mission in Afghanistan recorded 1,445 civilian deaths between January and the end of August, compared with 1,040 killings in the same eight-month period in 2007.
Some 330 civilians died in August alone, including about 92 killed in a US-led raid on the village of Azizabad, the UN said.
US blamed
The Afghan government and the UN have blamed the US for killing scores of civilians in the operation.
"This is the highest number of civilian deaths to occur in a single month since the end of major hostilities and the ousting of the Taliban regime at the end of 2001," UN human rights chief Navi Pallay said in a statement.
Ransom
Meanwhile, the country's intelligence agency said yesterday it had arrested two men who confessed to involvement in a Kabul kidnapping ring that had netted more than a million dollars in ransom.
The announcement came amid growing tension in the city, and other major centres, about a spike in abductions over the past year.
The pair, a 22-year-old known as "The Chief" and an older cook for the gang of several men, had abducted a series of wealthy Afghans, the National Directorate of Security spokesman, Sayed Ansari, said.
The violence in the country has dampened investor confidence and retarded development and even aid.
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