US Afghan spokesman gets it on Taliban tactics

In a CNN report on some recent fighting in an area where drugs are produced the American spokesman laid it out.

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Making note of the importance of preventing civilian casualties during the fighting, ISAF said "it is vital that innocent civilians separate themselves" from militants.

"In doing so they will not be mistaken for insurgents or caught up amongst insurgents whose cowardly tactics see them hiding in the civilian population, thereby causing the loss of innocent lives," ISAF said.

In another statement, ISAF said Tuesday airstrikes near Lashkar Gah caused civilian casualties when they targeted insurgents who they learned later were "using civilians as human shields." The incident occurred south of Lashkar Gah in Nawa.

"If this information had been known by ISAF troops, no ordnance would have been used. Tragically, it is believed that eight civilians were killed as a result of the airstrike. This terrible incident again shows the insurgents' blatant disregard for the lives of Afghan people," ISAF said.

It is not clear to me why there was reluctance to give this kind of response to the enemy tactics in the past, but in not giving this kind of response they were giving the Taliban a free news cycle or tow to make the bogus claims about civilian casualties.

It has been clear for sometime that this is the Taliban's most effective response to US air power that usually marks the end of most firefights with the Taliban who now flee as the planes approach. Before they adopted this tactic they were losing fighters at an unsustainable ratio.