KABUL, Afghanistan — The new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan will limit the use of air strikes in order to help cut down on civilian casualties, his chief spokesman said Monday.
In a “tactical directive” to be issued in coming days, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has ordered new operational standards, including a directive to refrain from firing on structures where insurgents may have taken refuge among civilians unless their own troops are in imminent danger, said Rear Admiral Gregory Smith.
Also under revision are ground search-and-seizure practices and the treatment of detainees, changes officials hope will reduce tensions between U.S. forces and Afghan citizens, and build a “civilian surge” to improve reconstruction and governance.
The directive is described as the most stringent effort yet to protect the lives of Afghan civilians, which McChrystal has identified as the crucial task of Western troops in Afghanistan.
“We can easily destroy the enemy,” Smith said. “But if we do not know precisely who is in that structure, we need to take measures to avoid loss of innocent life — step back or put up a cordon or other measures.”
McChrystal has spoken of the need to improve relations with ordinary Afghan civilians in order to persuade them not to support the Taliban. He also wants to speed and sharpen the military’s message in so-called “information operations.”
Repeated instances of civilian deaths from air strikes, coupled with resentment from Afghans whose homes have been searched in ground operations that often result in detentions, have undermined counterinsurgency efforts here for years.
Air strikes accounted for 64 percent of the 828 civilians killed last year by U.S. or Afghan government forces, according to a recent U.N. report. The Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for an additional 1,160 civilians deaths.
Asked whether the directive will encourage insurgents to take cover behind civilians, Smith replied: “They already are. Their tactic is to get us to escalate the fight inside villages. They use structures where villagers live to fire on us. The key is, we’ve got to find a way to separate the enemy from the people.”
The directive orders commanders to be more judicious when calling in air strikes. The goal is to restrict close air support to situations where U.S. or NATO forces, or Afghan army or police units, are in imminent danger of being overrun.
Smith said that McChrystal “made it very clear that if our troops find themselves in a situation where they are receiving fire from a location, if their lives are in danger, they’ll have to address the problem as best they can, either with ground forces or close air support.”
He added: “If it’s a situation where clearly (hostile) individuals are in a structure or move into a structure … where you do not know precisely whether or not civilians are … in those structures and you can move away safely, you should do so.”
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