Troops Use Paintball Guns, Lasers to Avoid Afghan Citizen Deaths
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The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan has lowered the odds that civilians would be killed or injured in its operations by closely tracking casualties and incorporating non-lethal tactics such as paintball guns, an analysis shows.
While the civilian death toll in Afghanistan rose 20 percent in 2010 compared with the year before, more than 90 percent of the increase was caused by insurgents, according to an analysis of coalition data published in the journal Science. The analysis is similar to the findings of a separate United Nations report released yesterday.