A/HRC/13/62 October, amid political tensions arising from the protracted delays in announcing the presidential results, AGEs attacked a commercial guest house in Kabul, killing eight civilians, five of whom were United Nations staff members, and injuring numerous others. This was the worst and most deliberate attack perpetrated on the United Nations in Afghanistan since the beginning of the armed conflict. 12. The worsening security situation in the south and south-east of the country and the spread of the conflict into various provinces of the centre, north-east and west, had serious humanitarian consequences. In addition to civilian death, injury, loss of livelihood, destruction of property, displacement and disruption of access to basic services, many aid agencies curtailed their humanitarian operations in the face of spreading insecurity and lawlessness. 13. Despite various appeals to the Taliban, following the visit of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions in 2008, to respect international humanitarian law, there was a marked increase in indiscriminate attacks in 2009. B. Pro-Government forces 14. Pro-Government forces were responsible for 23 per cent of civilian deaths from January to November 2009; air strikes accounted for 60 per cent of PGF actions, or 14 per cent of the total number of civilians killed. The use of air strikes continued to prove the most deadly tactic used by PGF and provoked strong public reaction, especially in the wake of strikes that resulted in a high loss of civilian life, particularly of women and children. 15. There continues to be a need for greater transparency by IM Forces when investigating these incidents. There were two particularly high-profile incidents of air strikes that led to a large number of civilian casualties. Several high-ranking German officials, including the Chief of Staff of the Army and a Government minister, resigned amid allegations of a cover-up over the number of civilian casualties resulting from an IM Forces air strike against two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban, in the north-eastern province of Kunduz on 4 September 2009. This air strike claimed the lives of 74 civilians, many of them children. On 4 May, an air strike in Bala Baluk district in western province of Farah claimed 64 civilian lives. Although the United States of America military acknowledged that it had failed to comply with internal military guidelines, a proper assessment prior to the attack could have determined whether civilians would have been disproportionately harmed and whether it was appropriate to use air strikes in a residential area. 16. The presence of IM Forces bases situated in urban areas, such as Kabul and some provincial capitals, continues to be a major concern. The location of such bases in residential areas may conflict with the international humanitarian law principle of precaution, which aims at protecting the civilian population from the dangers arising from military operations.1 Many smaller bases are often co-located with the ANSF, and sometimes with provincial civilian authorities, that are situated in busy civilian areas. For example, concerns have been expressed about the United States marines co-located with the District Administrator in a smaller base in Delaram bazaar in Nimroz province. This has led to more intrusive searches against community members visiting the District Governor, a greater risk of a suicide attack being directed against the base and increased the likelihood 1 6 It should be recalled that in the Kupreskic case, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia stated that this principle is part of customary international law. See case No. IT-95-16-T, judgement of 14 January 2000, para. 524 available at http://www.icty.org/x/cases/kupreskic/tjug/en/ kup-tj000114e.pdf. GE.10-10230