Foreign forces target civilians to prolong war: MPs

Members of Wolisi Jirga, the lower house of Afghan Parliament, say foreign forces intentionally target civilians in their airstrikes to pave the ground for the continuation of the war in Afghanistan. Speaking in Saturday’s plenary session, Engineer Mohammad Kamal Safi, an MP from the volatile Kunduz province in the house, said the foreign forces wanted to drag the Afghan people into further involvement in the conflict.
“The Afghan people believe that the actual policy is to push them to be further stuck in the war, but people don’t want this.”
Speaking about the potential consequences of civilian casualties in foreign and Afghan forces operation, the MP said that the inevitable fallout of such actions was continuation of the war in the country.
“What is the benefit of these actions for the Afghan government? Continuation of the war, more alienation of the public and making it easy for terrorist networks to recruit fighters for their ranks,” said Safi.
He claimed that neither Afghan government nor its foreign backers favored peace: “People say that whether they are in aircrafts [referring to foreign forces] or on the ground in tanks [referring to Afghan forces], they don’t want peace.”
Calling NATO forces airstrike in Kunduz which killed at least 16 members of a single family an atrocity, Kandahar representative in Wolisi Jirga Abdulrahim Ayoubi said that parliament should raise its voice against foreign forces’ violations.
“Imagine for a moment that the victims were your children. Think for a moment as Parliamentarians what is your responsibility before the nation,” the MP argued.
Ahmadullah Mohid, an MP from eastern Nooristan province, said American forces’ arbitrary operations can no longer be tolerated.
“If Taliban kill 10 civilians, Americans kill 20 others and it’s not even clear for what these people are being slaughtered.”
The MP also severely criticized the government for its failure to properly investigate cases of civilian deaths.
“The current incompetent government has never probed any case of civilian casualties to find out whether it was a mistake or an intentional act,” the MP concluded.