Taliban causing civilian casualties

Governor of Oruzgan, Assadullah Hamdam, says three men and a woman were killed when SAS troops went after the Taliban killers of a special forces soldier. Short answer. Tell the Taliban not to hide behind woman and children. Long answer. It is extremely unfortunate and no Aussie soldier would wish for it to happen but until we can manage to stop the Taliban involving civilians then it will happen; again and again. The Governor had urged Australian troops to be more cautious when targeting Taliban fighters, Sky said, including consulting with villagers. That’ll work! “Excuse me Mr Villager, we want your authority to go into the village and capture a Taliban terrorist”. “Sure thing”, he replies. “Just give us time to arrange for his escape”. Or worse; “Sure thing, just give us and the Taliban time to set up an ambush” The ADF are investigating the incident, and rightly so, but the problem is an old one and won’t go away in a hurray. So long as we review our battle procedures and Rules of Engagement to ensure we are not unduly risking civilian lives then we have done all we can. Other than that we can only continue to attack the Taliban and work to eventually isolate them from the civilian population sufficiently enough to destroy them. The last thing anyone should do is think poorly of the SAS. They have a very difficult job to do and are doing it magnificently, notwithstanding civilian casualties.