Taliban allegedly used children as shields

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban fighters carrying machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades used children as human shields during a battle in southern Afghanistan yesterday, forcing U.S.-led coalition soldiers to hold their fire for a time, the coalition said.

The clash in Uruzgan province began when more than 20 insurgents attacked a joint Afghan and coalition patrol.

The soldiers did fight the insurgents when they tried to flee the compound, and more than a dozen suspected militants were killed, the coalition said. The report did not list any casualties among troops or civilians.

U.S. Maj. Chris Belcher said Taliban forces had previously used children as shields. In June, insurgents forced women and children into a canal in Uruzgan while battling coalition forces, and many of the human shields died in the cross fire, he said.

"If you look at some of the actions where the Taliban have had women and children carrying ammunition for them, where they've used civilian houses, and now in this case they're using children to shield themselves, I'd say that shows they really don't care about Afghans," Belcher said.

The U.S.-led coalition and the NATO force in Afghanistan themselves were strongly criticized earlier in the year by President Hamid Karzai and others for causing civilian casualties in air strikes on suspected enemy locations. The number of such casualties has dropped recently.

Also yesterday, NATO said it was investigating a weapons shipment recently intercepted by troops in Farah province near the Afghan border with Iran.

"We're still evaluating what is contained in that shipment," a NATO spokesman, Maj. Charles Anthony, said.

A Washington Post report Sunday said the shipment seized Sept. 6 was being sent to the Taliban and included armor-piercing bombs similar to those that have been used against foreign troops in Iraq.

Meanwhile, about 2,500 Afghan and NATO troops launched an operation yesterday in Helmand province. The southern province has been the site of the fiercest battles this year and is the world's largest opium-producing region.