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 ROME (AP) - International donors pledged $360 million Tuesday to train judges, build new prisons and enact other measures to strengthen Afghanistan's judicial system at a conference overshadowed by concerns over civilian casualties caused by NATO forces.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the alliance would do everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties and that deaths of innocent people would be investigated. He stressed, however, that Taliban and other extremists were in a "different moral category" from coalition soldiers who inadvertently cause civilian casualties.
"Our opponents mingle and mix with innocent civilians. We do not intentionally kill; they behead people, they burn schools, they kill women and children," he said on the sidelines of the conference. "That said, NATO will do and has to do everything in its ability to prevent civilian casualties. For NATO, every single civilian life lost in Afghanistan is one too many."
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