Two Afghan boys killed in NATO accident

On February 28, two Afghan boys under seven years old were mistaken as insurgents and killed by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Although Brigadier General Gunter Katz apologized for the accident on behalf of the forces that fired upon them, his statement does not change the fact that such operational incidents continue to worm their way into civilians' minds as examples of how foreign forces might be ineffective or, worse, "killers" of innocents, as insurgents call them.

As Dawood Azami from the BBC Afghan service pointed out, insurgents have been able to exploit these frequent mistaken killings as ways to make civilians believe that they're at risk. There are foreign forces out there creating huge numbers of civilian deaths; they're occupiers of our land and murderers of our innocent people. That's what they want the population to believe, and such stirrings have led to anti-American protests over the past decade. The accidental killings have decreased in frequency over the years---civilian casualties dropped 12% in 2012, the first time that the figure has fallen since 2006---but they continue to be an issue.

The boys were tending cattle in the Uruzgan province of southern Afghanistan when Australian troops, after an attack from the Taliban in that region, fired at them from a helicopter. The 1,500 Australian troops stationed in this region are focused on training and mentoring Afghan soldiers. The Australian military and ISAF are now investigating the accident.

By the end of 2014, the NATO-led troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan. Afghanistan will then expect to hold national security in their own hands and be handed the baton of responsibility for their own affairs. But meanwhile, what can be done to reduce civilian casualties whenever foreign forces become involved? In the future, what can we take from these experiences in current conflicts to better protect the innocents?