KABUL: A provincial governor in Afghanistan said Wednesday that a battle between NATO and the Taliban the previous day had killed three women and two children, and called on the coalition to “pay attention” to civilian casualties. Afghan officials have often spoken out about civilian deaths, arguing that the international forces are not being careful enough to avoid such casualties as the war nears its tenth year. Insurgents also try to use the civilian death toll as a way of rallying support for their cause. Also Wednesday, NATO said that a leader of the Haqqani network - militants who operate out of western Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan - was killed in a Dec. 18 operation launched by international forces and their Afghan counterparts in the eastern Khost province. In Helmand, a Taliban stronghold and scene of some of the heaviest fighting in the war, the provincial governor's office said the five civilians died Tuesday as militants attacked coalition forces in the Sangin district. Seven insurgents were killed in the battle, according to the statement from the governor's office. NATO has said it was investigating the civilian fatalities and that it exercises the utmost caution during operations to minimize such occurrences. The coalition said Tuesday that insurgents were using a civilian home to attack its forces and that the insurgents launched their attack with assault rifles and a machine gun. NATO troops returned fire and used mortars. A UN report this month said that Afghan civilian casualties increased by 20 percent in the first 10 months of 2010, compared with the same period a year earlier. It said there were at least 6,215 conflict-related civilian casualties - 2,412 deaths and 3,803 injuries. But the UN report also found that civilian casualties attributed to NATO and pro-government forces dropped by 18 percent compared to the first 10 months of 2009.
