Civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan (2001–2021)

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During the War in Afghanistan, according to the Costs of War Project the war killed 176,000 people in Afghanistan: 46,319 civilians, 69,095 military and police and at least 52,893 opposition fighters. However, the death toll is possibly higher due to unaccounted deaths by "disease, loss of access to food, water, infrastructure, and/or other indirect consequences of the war." According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, the conflict killed 212,191 people. The Cost of War project estimated in 2015 that the number who have died through indirect causes related to the war may be as high as 360,000 additional people based on a ratio of indirect to direct deaths in contemporary conflicts. The war, launched by the United States as "Operation Enduring Freedom" in 2001, began with an initial air campaign that almost immediately prompted concerns over the number of Afghan civilians being killed. According to The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the majority of civilian casualties were attributed to the Taliban and other anti government elements each year, with the figure ranging from 61% to 80% depending on the year. Civilian deaths were higher in the latter part of the war, with 2015 and 2016 both consecutively breaking the record of annual civilian deaths. The civilian losses are a continuation of the high civilian casualties experienced during the Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s, and the three periods of civil war following it: 1989–1992, 1992–1996, and 1996–2001.

There is no single official figure for the overall number of civilians killed by the war since 2001, but estimates for specific years or periods have been published by a number of independent organizations and are presented here. Most, if not all, of the sources state that their estimates are likely to be underestimates.

An estimated 1,700 people were killed in 2005 according to an Associated Press count, including civilians, insurgents and security forces members. Some 600 policemen were killed between Hamid Karzai's election as president of Afghanistan in early December 2004 and mid May 2005.

A report by Human Rights Watch said that 4,400 Afghans had been killed in 2006, more than 1,000 of them civilians. An Associated Press tally based on reports from Afghan, NATO and coalition officials puts the overall death toll slightly lower, at about 4,000, most of them militants. More than 1,900 people were killed in the first eight months of the year by the end of August.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported that 2,118 civilians were killed as a result of armed conflict in Afghanistan in 2008, the highest civilian death toll since the end of the initial 2001 invasion. This represents an increase of about 40 percent over UNAMA's figure of 1,523 civilians killed in 2007. Going into further detail, UNAMA reported that out of 2,118 civilian deaths in 2008, 1,160 non combatants were killed by anti government forces, accounting for 55% of the 2008 total, while 828 were killed by international led military forces, accounting for 39% of the 2008 total. The remaining 6% – 130 deaths – could not be attributed to any of the parties since some of them died as a result of crossfire or were killed by unexploded ordnance, for example. Of the civilians killed by anti government elements, 85% died as a result of suicide or improvised explosive devices. Of the civilians killed by pro government forces, 64% were killed by U. S./NATO airstrikes. In October 2008, Professor Marc W. Herold of the University of New Hampshire reported that the number of civilians killed in direct action by U. S. and other NATO forces from 2005 up that point in 2008 was at least between 2,699 and 3,273. These figures represent underestimates of the number of Afghan civilians killed because civilians are sometimes labelled militants by the military and because these figures only include civilians that died immediately at the scene and not civilians that died later of their injuries. In 2008, 38 aid workers, almost all from NGO's, were killed, double the number from 2007, and 147 were abducted. On 11 May 2009, U. S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates replaced McKiernan with General McChrystal as the new U. S. commander of all foreign military forces in Afghanistan. One of General McChrystal's first announcements was a sharp restriction on the use of airstrikes to reduce civilian casualties. Afghan leaders have long pleaded that foreign troops end airstrikes and nighttime raids of Afghan homes. Consequently, effective 2 July 2009, coalition air and ground combat operations were ordered to take steps to minimize Afghan civilian casualties in accordance with a tactical directive issued by General Stanley A. McChrystal, USA, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. In addition to a growing number of Afghan civilians being killed, Afghan populations caught in the eight year war have also suffered from loss of livelihood, displacement, and the destruction of their homes, property, and personal assets. In September 2009, the U. N. reported that August had been the deadliest month of 2009 to date for Afghan civilians as a result of the August 20th election. The U. N. also reported that about 1,500 people were killed from the start of the year through August. The report stated: "August (was) the deadliest month since the beginning of 2009. These figures reflect an increasing trend in insecurity over recent months and in elections related violence." UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) attributed 68% of the deaths to anti government elements and 23% of the deaths to international led military forces – most of them in airstrikes. In 9% of the civilian deaths, UNAMA was unable to clearly attribute the cause to any one side of the parties in the conflict. The number of civilians killed represented an increase of 31% over the same period in 2008, when 1,145 civilians were killed.

2010 was again the deadliest year for Afghan civilians in the war since the fall of the Taliban government in late 2001, as insecurity and volatility continued to spread to the northern, eastern, and western regions of Afghanistan. The use of improvised explosive devices increased, with an average of 23 roadside bombs a day which were detonated, discovered, or defused. 2,769 civilian deaths and 4,821 injuries were reported in 2012.

The UN recorded 2,969 civilian deaths and 5,669 injuries in 2013. Overall, according to the UN, 3,710 civilians were killed and 6,825 were wounded in 2014,

The UN estimates that 3,545 civilians were killed and 7,457 injured in 2015.

The UN estimates that in 2016 3,498 civilians were killed and 7,920 were wounded in Afghanistan.

The UN estimates that 1,662 civilians were killed from January through June 2017. The ISIL attacked a hospital and killed over 50 patients and staff. A German female aid worker was killed, her Afghan guard beheaded and a Finnish female aid worker kidnapped in May (most likely by ISIL).

By the end of August, five US troops were killed in the war. The US has around 15,000 troops in Afghanistan. According to Uppsala Conflict Data Program the total number of deaths including civilians and combatants, will surpass 20,000 by the end of 2018. In a single month of October 2018, Up to 273 Afghan civilians were killed and 550 others injured in separate incidents. On 28 December 2018 a report issued by UNICEF revealed that during the first nine months of 2018, five thousand children were killed or injured in Afghanistan. Manuel Fontaine UNICEF Director of Emergency Programs said the world has forgotten children living in conflict zones.

On July 4, 2002, in the first anti American protest since the overthrow of the Taliban, about 200 Afghans marched through the streets of Kabul to express their outrage over attacks by U. S. forces which killed scores of civilians, including many children and 25 members of one family. According to Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah, 44 people were killed and 120 wounded in the U. S. attacks on about a half dozen villages in Uruzgan province, which villagers said included an attack on a pre wedding party. On April 30, 2007, thousands of Afghans staged a protest accusing United States led coalition and Afghan troops of killing civilians in the western province of Herat. The protesters stormed a government district headquarters in Shindand, south of Herat city, where Western troops have a large base. The anti U. S. protest came a day after an angry demonstration in eastern Nangahar province over the killing of civilians by coalition and Afghan forces there. On May 2, 2007, about 500 Afghan university students protested in the eastern province of Nangarhar alleging six civilians had been killed by U. S. led coalition troops a few days before. On that same day, Afghan and UN teams announced that their investigations had found that around 50 civilians were killed in days of ground fighting and bombing in a remote valley in the western province of Herat. On September 26, 2007, following a raid by foreign troops that left two religious leaders dead, about 500 Afghan protesters shut down the main highway out of Kandahar city with some chanting "Death to Canada" and "Death to foreigners" and calling on foreign troops to leave their country. The protesters accused American and Canadian soldiers of killing the two religious leaders during night raids on houses in Senjaray, a community on the outskirts of Kandahar city. Anger was also directed at Afghan President Hamid Karzai for allowing the foreign military presence in their country. On August 23, 2008, about 250 Afghan villagers gathered in angry demonstration to protest the deaths of 76 civilians, most of them children, killed in U. S. led airstrikes near the village of Azizabad, about 120 kilometres south of Herat city in western Afghanistan. On September 1, 2008, hundreds of citizens in the Afghan capital Kabul rushed into the streets and burnt tires on the Kabul Jalalabad highway protesting the killing of three members of a Kabuli family, including two children, by U. S. led troops. Residents said the U. S. led troops, carrying out a pre dawn raid in Hud Kheil area in the eastern quarter of Kabul, threw hand grenades into a house, killing Noorullah and two of his sons, one of whom was eight months old. Their deaths were the latest in a string of incidents that have angered Afghans and caused a split between the Afghan government and foreign troops. On October 16, 2008, protests by crowds against the presence of NATO forces and the Afghan government took place in Lashkar Gah, capital city of Helmand province, after a NATO airstrike killed as many as 18 women and children. On December 26, 2008, a crowd of hundreds of Afghans protested in Maywand District in Kandahar province following overnight raids by U. S. military forces, claiming that innocent people were killed in the attack. Local villagers, angered by the military raids, blocked the main highway for three hours and burned tires. On March 7, 2009, hundreds of Afghan demonstrators in eastern Afghanistan blocked the path of a U. S. military convoy to condemn an early morning raid in Khost province that killed four people and wounded two. Tahir Khan Sabari, the deputy governor of the province, said the four people killed were civilians, but the U. S. military claimed they were militants. Demonstrators in Khost city threw rocks at the American military convoy, shouted "Death to America", and burned tires, sending up dark plumes of smoke. On May 7, 2009, thousands of Afghan villagers shouting "Death to America" and "Death to the Government" protested in Farah city over US bomber air strikes on May 4 that killed 147 civilians. Clashes with police started when people from the three villages struck by US B1 bombers brought 15 newly discovered bodies in a truck to the house of the provincial governor. Four protesters were wounded when police opened fire. Going by the account of survivors, the air raid was not a brief attack by several aircraft acting on mistaken intelligence, but a sustained bombardment in which three villages were pounded to pieces. An Afghan government investigation concluded on May 16, 2009, with the Afghan Defense Ministry announcing an official death toll of 140 villagers. A copy of the government's list of the names and ages of each of the 140 dead showed that 93 of those killed were children, and only 22 were adult males. On December 9, 2009, some 5,000 Afghan villagers marched in protest over the killing of civilians in a pre dawn attack by U. S. troops in Armul village, Laghman province in eastern Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai's office said the attack had killed 6 civilians, including one woman, while NATO denied that any civilians had been killed in its military attack. A Reuters journalist, on the other hand, saw the bodies of a woman and 12 males, including two teenagers, and the top Laghman provincial council leader said that 13 civilians had been killed. The protesters were chanting slogans against the foreign troops in their country, as well as against Afghan president Hamid Karzai and the provincial governor, when Afghan troops opened fire on them. Four protesters were hit by bullets, two dying instantly and two were taken to a hospital, where residents said they died of their wounds. On December 30, 2009, protesters in Jalalabad set alight a US flag and an effigy of President Obama after chanting "Death to Obama" and "Death to foreign forces". In Kabul, protesters held up banners showing photographs of dead children alongside placards demanding "Foreign troops leave Afghanistan" and "Stop killing us". This was in response to reports that U. S. led forces had shot 10 villagers in their home, including 8 children, during a raid in the Ghazi Khan village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar. On January 21, 2010, angry Afghan villagers took to the streets in Ghazni province to protest the deaths of civilians they claimed were killed in a raid by NATO troops. NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) claimed it had killed four insurgents including a 15 year old boy during their raid in the Qarabagh District of Ghazni province the previous night. But 50 villagers brought five coffins to the provincial capital Ghazni city, claiming that three of the dead were civilians, including two children below the age of seven. The head of the provincial hospital where the bodies were initially taken said that his doctors told him that two children were among the bodies brought to them. On January 28, 2010, angry demonstrations took place outside Camp Phoenix, a U. S. military base on the outskirts of Kabul, after NATO troops killed an Afghan religious leader who had been sitting in a parked car with his two young sons while waiting for a NATO ISAF convoy to pass by. According to witnesses, the fourth ISAF vehicle in the convoy opened fire on the parked car without provocation. At least 16 bullet holes were later counted on the car's exterior and Mullah Mohmmad Younas was killed by three bullets in his chest and one in his abdomen. ISAF confirmed the shooting of a civilian, offered sympathies, and said it was investigating.

After the Taliban's killing of 26 young men on 19 October 2008, in southern Kandahar Province in a militant controlled area – unclear is whether the victims were Afghan government soldiers or recruits or mere civilians looking for work in Iran – the following Friday, 1,000 people in Mihtarlam in northeastern Laghman Province, where most of those killed came from, protested against those Taliban killings. In all 2008 until October, 29 aid workers, 5 of whom non Afghanis, were killed in Afghanistan. According to the United Nations, anti government elements were responsible for 76% of civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2009, 75% in 2010 and 80% in 2011. In considering civilian casualties caused collectively by insurgent forces, the armed insurgency in Afghanistan against the government and foreign military forces is composed of many diverse individuals and groups that are motivated by a range of different goals and ideologies, that do not necessarily identify as "Taliban", and that do not act under a single line of authority. In October 2008, British charity worker Gayle Williams working for Christian UK charity 'Serve Afghanistan' – focusing on training and education for disabled persons – was murdered near Kabul. Taliban claimed they killed her because her organisation "was preaching Christianity in Afghanistan".

The deaths of thousands of Afghan civilians caused directly and indirectly by the U. S. and NATO bombing campaigns have been a major underlying focus of protests against the war in Afghanistan since 2001. Protests around the world, starting with large scale global demonstrations in the days leading up to the official launch of U. S. Operation Enduring Freedom's under George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld in October 2001, have taken place every year since.