Taliban hiding behind children

U.S.: Taliban used kids as human shields - Yahoo! News

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

As aircraft prepared to bomb the site, "coalition forces as well as the aircraft identified several insurgents in one compound using children as human shields," the statement said. Ground troops and the aircraft withheld fire to avoid injuring the children, it said.

Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman, said Taliban militants have used children as shields before. 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 crossfire, 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.

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