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'US has long record of institutionalized targeting of civilians in Afghanistan'

Friday, 30 November 2018 1:44 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 30 November 2018 1:48 PM ]

US soldiers gather at Kandahar Air base in Afghanistan on January 23, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

The United States has “a long record of crimes” since the invasion of Afghanistan, says an analyst, adding that Washington has absolutely no business being in the war-torn country.

“Whatever anyone might think about the Taliban, the United States has absolutely no business [being] in Afghanistan where it is really doing one thing and that is violently propping up a corrupt puppet government. There is no other way to look at it,” Barry Grossman told Press TV in an interview on Friday.

“Let’s be clear about another thing. The United States has a long record of crimes in Afghanistan during those 17 years whether you want to talk about abductions, rape, murder, other abuses by military personnel or the institutionalized targeting of civilian population, schools, mosques and such things … In my view the United States has no business being there and it is very revealing,” he added.

This is while at least 23 civilians, most of them women and children, have been killed in a US airstrike in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand.

The United Nations said last month the number of civilians killed or injured by airstrikes in Afghanistan in the first nine months of the year was already higher than in any entire year since at least 2009.

The increase comes as the US has stepped up its air operations in an attempt to exert pressure on the Taliban militant group to force them to accept a negotiated end to the 17-year war.

The US, along with a number of fellow-NATO members, invaded Afghanistan in 2001, toppling a Taliban regime in control of most of the country at the time, but it has failed to restore security in the country plagued by militancy and terrorism.