US to back off when Taliban use human shields

CNN:

U.S. forces in Afghanistan will "back off" from firing at insurgents if the fighters are using civilian buildings as cover, the U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan told CNN.

"I've given direct guidance, and so has my boss to me, that if there's any doubt at all that the enemy is firing from a house or building where there might be women and children, that we'll just back off," Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, the commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division, told CNN's Barbara Starr.

"That potentially is something that we did not do before, but now because of this increased emphasis, we are doing," he said in an interview at an outpost in Afghanistan's Paktika province near the Pakistani border.

Schloesser spoke the same day the U.S. military announced that fighting last week in Kandahar province left 37 civilians dead and another 35 wounded. During the two-day battle in Kandahar's Shah Wali Kott district, insurgents fired from some villagers' houses, using them as cover, villagers told the U.S. military.

Afghan officials said the civilian deaths in Kandahar were the result of a U.S. airstrike. But a joint U.S.-Afghan investigation concluded that the civilians died during a battle that was sparked when insurgents ambushed an Afghan-coalition patrol.

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This could be a serious mistake that will lead to the Taliban putting more civilians at risk by taking human shields in violation of the Geneva Convention. It is certainly rewarding bad behavior and will likely extend the war if the policy stays in place.

The military has done a poor job of highlighting the Taliban war crimes and the media has also failed in that regard. If our forces were acting that way, I am sure it would be a big story. It should be a big story when the enemy does it too.

The Taliban is getting a twofer with this new policy. They live to fight another day by committing a war crime and they get an information op if we attack them while they are committing a war crime.