By Steve Hynd
The Afghan Rights Monitor says that an average of three children under the age of 18 are killed every day in Afghanistan.
Children are the biggest victims of the war in Afghanistan, with more than 1,050 people under 18 years old killed last year alone, according to an Afghan human rights watchdog.
Taliban-linked militants caused around 64 percent of all violent child deaths last year, the Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM) said in a report.
Children were also press-ganged, sexually exploited, deprived of health and education, and illegally detained by all sides in a war that is dragging into its ninth year since the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime.
"At least three children were killed in war-related incidents every day in 2009 and many others suffered in diverse but mostly unreported ways," ARM director Ajmal Samadi said.
Children died in suicide attacks and roadside bombings -- at the crux of the Taliban's arsenal against US, NATO and Afghan troops fighting the increasingly virulent insurgency as it spreads across the impoverished country.
The Taliban "reportedly caused more harm and intentionally abused more children for illegal purposes than pro-government Afghan and international forces," the report said.
Before anyone even thinks of it - being only half as guilty of such an atrocity as the Taliban is nothing to be proud of.
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