15 September 2008: PTI
New York (PTI): Rising food and fuel costs, deteriorating security and the lack of an international response are creating an increasingly precarious situation in Afghanistan, a senior Western envoy has cautioned. The conditions in Afghanistan have become worst since 2001, Francese Vendrell, a Spanish diplomat with eight years' experience in the country was quoted by the New York Times as saying.
He, the paper said, urged for a concerted American and foreign response even before the new administration in Washington takes over to avoid "a very hot winter for all of us."
Vendrell, who recently stepped down as the European Union envoy in Kabul, especially criticised the growing number of civilian deaths in attacks by American and international forces.
Those deaths have created "a great deal of antipathy" and widened the distance between the Afghan government and citizens, he said in Geneva at an annual review of global strategy organised by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The United States military is investigating an assertion by villagers in western Afghanistan that some 90 men, women and children died in a missile attack on August 22. The Afghan government and a United Nations investigation have backed that assertion, but American officers have said that only seven civilians were killed.
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