Civilian deaths hit Afghan support for Nato

Rising anger at the growing number of civilians being caught in the crossfire between Nato troops and Taliban insurgents is creating concern that support for Nato in southern Afghanistan is being severely undermined. -- “We can’t prevent the terrorists from coming from Pakistan, and we can’t prevent the coalition from bombing the terrorists, and our children are dying because of that,” Mr Karzai said in a speech marking International Human Rights Day. -- Almost 4,000 people have died since the beginning of the year in a resurgent Taliban insurgency, most of them in the four southern provinces of the country. -- The US-based Human Rights Watch organisation estimates that more than 1,000 of the dead were civilians.