AIHRC: US Drone Strikes Violating Human Rights Principles

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in a statement on Wednesday condemned the US drone attacks in Afghanistan as a blatant violation of Human Rights rules and conventions.
The AIHRC’s statement was released in the wake of a rise in the number of the US drone attacks on the Afghan civilians, resulting in growing death tolls.

The AIHRC pointed to the recent US military activities in Afghanistan, and said, “The US military air strikes in Afghanistan are against the humanitarian laws and rules.”

In a recent case, at least 22 civilians, including women and children, were killed in a US drone strike on a house in the Northern Afghan province of Parwan.

More recently, the US drone strike killed three civilians, including a child and a university student in Shindend city of Herat province three days ago.

The commission further called on the Afghan officials to probe into the recent US drone strikes in Herat province.

The AIHRC also asked the US army to avoid killing more civilians.

A new Gallup polls found that for the first time, Americans think the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was a mistake, with 49% holding that belief compared to 48% who say the conflict should have occurred.

The poll has been conducted since the November 2001 invasion, reaching a peak of 93% of Americans supporting the effort in January 2002.

Now 49% of Americans say it was a mistake for the US to go to war in Afghanistan.

More Americans now think it was a mistake for the US to invade Afghanistan in 2001.

This comes as the US military forces are likely to be forced to leave Afghanistan as the gap is widening between Kabul and Washington over the endorsement of a strategic security pact which keeps the US military build-up in the war-torn country.
The drone attacks have grown into a main bone of contention between the two sides.

Yesterday, US President Barack Obama threatened his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai for not signing the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) between Washington and Kabul.

The White House announced on Tuesday that Obama has ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for a full US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan if the deal is not signed.

In a Tuesday phone call, Obama told Karzai that his country would no longer wait for a deal before preparing for a full withdrawal.

“President Obama told President Karzai that because he has demonstrated that it is unlikely that he will sign the BSA, the United States is moving forward with additional contingency planning,” the White House said in a statement.

“Should we have a BSA and a willing and committed partner in the Afghan government, a limited post-2014 mission focused on training, advising, and assisting Afghan forces and going after the remnants of core Al-Qaeda could be in the interests of the United States and Afghanistan,” it said.

The Obama administration has been pressing the Afghan president to sign the deal for more than a year, but President Karzai has repeatedly refused to do so.

The two countries are still at odds on some of the terms of the agreement, including immunity for American troops and their attacks on Afghan villages and homes.

The White House statement warned that the longer the US goes without an agreement, the more challenging it would be to plan and execute any US mission in Afghanistan post-2014.

“The longer we go without a BSA, the more likely it will be that any post-2014 US mission will be smaller in scale and ambition,” the statement said.