KABUL IS SAFER FOR CHILDREN THAN LONDON OR NY?

KABUL, Afghanistan - Children may be safer in the Afghan capital than in London or New York despite a deadly nine-year Taliban insurgency, NATO's top civilian representative in the country has said.
"The children are probably safer here than they would be in London, New York or Glasgow or many other cities," Mark Sedwill (photo) told the BBC children's television news programme Newsround to be aired on Monday.

• The former British ambassador to Kabul was responding to a question about Afghan children who had told the programme that they felt unsafe on the streets because of the risk of bomb attacks.
• Sedwill said there were "very few of those bombs" in Kabul and other major Afghan cities, according to a statement from the BBC.
• "Most children can go about their lives in safety. It's a very family-orientated society. So, it is a little bit like a city of villages," he added.

Civilian casualties are at their highest this year since the start of the US-led invasion to oust the hardline Islamist Taliban from power in late 2001.
The United Nations said in August that 1,271 Afghan civilians were killed in the first six months of the year, a rise of one third over the same period in 2009, mostly in insurgent attacks. The UN report also noted a 55% increase in casualties among children.

• The UN children's agency said last year that deteriorating security was harming children in Afghanistan, with attacks targeting schools and preventing access to vital health care. Attacks include mysterious apparent gas poisonings that have been blamed on Taliban militants opposed to girls' education and acid attacks on young girls.
• A child was among three people killed on Saturday when a suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up in Mihtarlam in eastern Laghman province.

Source: The Times