US-led attacks killed more civilians than insurgent attacks this year

US-led coalition and NATO forces fighting insurgents in Afghanistan have killed at least 203 civilians so far this year–surpassing the 178 civilians killed in militant attacks, according to an Associated Press tally. Insurgency attacks and military operations have surged in recent weeks, and in the past 10 days, more than 90 civilians have been killed by airstrikes and artillery fire targeting Taliban insurgents, said President Hamid Karzai. Separate figures from the UN and an umbrella organization of Afghan and international aid groups show that the numbers of civilians killed by international forces is approximately equal to those killed by insurgents. After a seething speech by Karzai on June 23–in which he accused NATO and US forces of viewing Afghan lives as "cheap"–NATO conceded that it had to "do better." The next day, NATO admitted to killing civilians in Pakistan. A Pakistani government spokesman said that a rocket struck a building close to the Afghan border, with residents claiming that a child, a woman and seven men died. Major John Thomas, a NATO spokesman, said that in the course of chasing insurgents across the border they may have "hit a building which may have had a number of civilians in it." The day before, Karzai had criticized NATO's "indiscriminate and imprecise operations."