Taliban kill many more Afghan civilians than international forces

Not something you'll find in "Canada's National Newsaper"--what others are covering:

The cost of war

2009 was the deadliest year since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan for Afghan civilians, according to a just-released report from the United Nations, and the Taliban and other insurgents killed nearly three times more civilians than coalition forces; most Taliban-caused deaths were from suicide bombings, executions, and homemade bombs (BBC, AP, NYT, AJE, AFP, Pajhwok, Reuters). More than 2,400 Afghan civilians were killed last year, a 14 percent increase over 2008, and civilian deaths caused by Western forces dropped 28 percent from the previous year...

Update: This Jan. 14 story by Matthew Fisher of Canwest News is right to the point:

The United Nations has accused the Taliban of causing far more civilian casualties than NATO and Afghan forces.

A report released Wednesday by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) concluded the Taliban had killed 1,630 civilians in 2009 -- a staggering 40-per-cent increase from one year earlier.

According to the same UNAMA calculations, which were based on a wide variety of Afghan sources, NATO and Afghan troops killed 596 civilians last year -- a drop of nearly 30 per cent from 2008.

In all, 2,412 civilians died in 2009, an increase of 14 per cent from the previous year...

The Globe and Mail, on the other hand, still has nothing online and the print edition Jan. 14 ran four very short paras from the NY Times--with the Taliban angle in the last one. Hmmm.