A parliamentarian commission on Tuesday called for the way the Afghan war is fought to be changed in order to protect civilians as the number of civilian casualties looks set to rise this year.
Head of the Human Rights and Civil Society Commission Fauzia Koofi said that civilians are the main victims of the war against the Taliban and other insurgents groups in the country.
The commission criticized the strategies used by both Afghan and international forces to defend the country, saying that too many civilians were being killed.
"It is necessary that fighting techniques should be changed because the current techniques involve too many civilian causalities and the war's strategy has also been unsuccessful. The war fields should be change from the residential areas to those parts where insurgents are making their plans," Koofi said, noting that the insurgents do sometimes use civilians as shields.
Meanwhile the Ministry of Defence said that the protection of civilians is its priority.
"Security forces are sacrificing themselves to keep civilians safe. If some have such claims, they should come and prove that civilians were killed in a [Afghan] army operation," defence ministry spokesman Gen Zahir Azimi said.
Civilians are not only victims of war against insurgency and military operations but are also victims in suicide attacks, bomb attacks, and roadside mines in Afghanistan.