Although a large proportion of those targeted in the estimated 1,256 lethal raids were undoubtedly Taliban insurgents, a very substantial proportion were civilians.
Some were targeted after malicious tips by tribal and personal enemies. Others fell victim to a targeting system that is overwhelmingly dependent on electronic intelligence. Phone calls to a known insurgent are regarded as a basis for adding a cell phone number to the "kill/capture list."
One detainee picked up in a night raid earlier this year was told by his interrogator that it was because he had made phone calls to an insurgent, IPS learned from a friend of the detainee's family.
Hoh, who was briefed on the list, called the Joint Priority Effects List (JPEL) in 2009, told this writer that a large proportion of the targets on the list were not identifiable individuals at all, but mobile phone numbers.
But in the Pashtun zones of Afghanistan, contacts with Taliban commanders and other Taliban figures are nearly universal, according to Michael Semple, former deputy EU representative in Afghanistan and a leading specialist on the Afghan insurgency.
In addition, SOF commanders have begun consciously targeting individuals who were not believed to be insurgents but who were believed to have provided moral or material support, or to have intelligence information about them.
That targeting shift, acknowledged by military officials to the authors of a recent study by the Open Society Foundations and The Liaison Office, was reflected in an 82-percent increase in the number of people seized in raids and detained briefly during the August-November campaign, compared with the May-July campaign.
Those detainees were also counted as insurgents in the data released to the news media, despite the fact that up to 90 percent of them were released as civilians within days or months, as IPS reported last June.
Some of those targeted civilians were killed in raids when they appeared to challenge the SOF intruders, adding to the 1,588 non-targeted individuals killed in the raids. However, estimating the additional toll of civilians is impossible.
The ISAF Public Affairs Officer for SOF issues and officials responsible for civilian casualties monitoring at the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan did not respond to requests for comment on this article.
Afghan human rights officials and foreign observers have suggested that fewer civilian deaths have occurred in night raids with the increasing use of the so-called "soft knock," in which Afghan personnel are used to announce the presence of the raiding party with a loudspeaker before entry into the house.
The toll of civilians in more recent 90-day periods may well have been reduced in 2011 compared with a year earlier, as suggested by smaller numbers of alleged insurgents said to have been killed over the course of the three campaigns.
But night raids clearly remain the overwhelmingly primary -- though still unacknowledged -- cause of civilian deaths in the war.(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
