Looking at the Taliban's official statements and material that is publicly available, I personally have not been able to identify any official statement confirming their deliberate targeting of civilians. Caveats below 👇
@JJSchroden
Under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) unless government officials are classified as combatants, they cannot be killed and are considered civilians.
See for example 👇
Instead adopting a very wide interpretation of who can be considered a legitimate military target. More details on their approach below.
Are all “members” of ISIL targetable? justsecurity.org/30508/members-…
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIx1U0UVAAAzgfL.jpg)
HOWEVER, I would argue that since 2014, we have seen a deliberate escalation on both U.S. & #ANDSF behalf.
Rather than attempting to identify the fighter, ANDSF forces tend to fire mortar rounds in that general direction
Point well illustrated by this example
Here is one example
The truth is that both sides are continuously targeting supporters of the other side regardless of their status under IHL.
It is important that we continue to call out all sides for these grave violations.