The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Wednesday lashed out at Taliban's continued killing of innocent civilians, saying that "their brutal actions represent the most serious threat to Afghanistan's sovereignty."
This year alone insurgents are responsible for nearly 1,000 civilian casualties in Afghanistan, according to ISAF estimates.
Latest in the series, 22 people were killed and dozens wounded in simultaneous attack by two suicide-bombers in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar on Wednesday.
All those killed in the terror strike targeting trucks carrying supplies to the NATO-run Kandahar Air Base were civilians.
But, they were not the only civilians killed by the insurgents this week. One child died and four wounded on Tuesday evening when an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) went off in the eastern province of Paktika. Hours later, three civilians, two of them women, were killed by a Taliban IED in Khogyani district of neighboring Ghazni province.
These attacks were clear evidence of the insurgent's total lack of regard for the people and the legitimate government of Afghanistan, ISAF said.
It urged the Afghan people "to continue to support the legitimate government of Afghanistan and their Afghan National Security Forces in their stance against the insurgents and their barbaric actions."
ISAF issued the statement on the same day 18 civilians, including women and children, were allegedly killed in an ISAF airstrike in the country's east. The incident occurred during a joint operation by Afghan and coalition security forces to capture a Taliban leader in Baraki Barak district of Logar province.
ISAF, which initially said that only two women were injured in the incident, announced an inquiry after Afghan intelligence officials and Tribal elders said the missile strike killed 18 civilians, including women and children, besides killing eight Taliban commanders.
ISAF said in a separate statement that it had "initiated a Joint Incident Assessment Team to assess a combined Afghan-Coalition forces operation in Logar province today, which resulted in allegations of several Afghan civilian casualties."
"Coalition forces take every allegation of civilian casualties seriously and will conduct a complete assessment of the engagement," it added.
Civilian deaths in NATO air-strikes had been a source of tension in the West's security operations in Afghanistan.
Afghan government had repeatedly raised concerns over the killing of civilians in pre-emptive raids by foreign forces, who target villagers' houses in the country's southern and eastern provinces in search of suspected insurgents and those who supply them with weapons.
ISAF has vowed that it will "continue to do everything possible to prevent civilian casualties in Afghanistan throughout 2012."
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