Another Bungled Raid - Another Dead Civilian

From AP this morning:

In a separate incident, alliance soldiers killed an Afghan woman during a raid on a house in the troubled eastern province of Khost, which had aimed to capture a 'Taliban commander', ISAF said.

Chasing the suspect through walled compounds, the troops opened fire after seeing a gun pointing towards them from a room. The troops later found they had killed a woman, an ISAF statement said.

"Inside the room, they found one woman dead and another with a minor wound as a result of the gunfire. An AK-47 was next to the killed female," it said.

According to Afghan tradition women rarely take part in war, but most Afghan households keep firearms in their homes for security.

Civilian casualties are an extremely sensitive issue in Afghanistan, especially when caused by the US-led NATO force, deployed in Afghanistan to help Kabul battle an insurgency being waged by the Taliban.

According to a recent UN report, more than 1200 Afghan civilians lost their lives in violence in the first half of the year, about 31 per cent higher than in the same period last year.