Go to Google news and type "Pakistan" in the search box. You will get a stories such as these:

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/05/10/Pakistan-claims-200-Taliban-slain/UPI-91631241969184/

http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=pakistan

Inevitably there are claims that the Taliban are using civilians as human shields. See:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25444465-2703,00.html

"TALIBAN militants are using civilians in Swat Valley towns as human shields and planting mines in girls' schools across Buner, say residents and the Pakistani military."

I heard refugees fleeing Swat make similar claims to BBC reporters.

See also:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8032558.stm

Repeat the exercise with Google news using "Sri Lanka" instead of "Pakistan" and we get similar results. For example:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sri-lanka11-2009may11,0,4527861.story

Here it is the Tamil Tigers rather than the Taliban who are the insurgents. Again the claim that the insurgents are using civilians as human shields is made.

Note:

--Both Pakistan and Sri Lanka are fighting to regain control of territory that international law recognises as theirs. There is no "occupation" or "invasion".

--In both cases the insurgents have amply demonstrated their ruthlessness and disregard for civilian lives.

--In these sorts of conflict it is hard to tell who is a civilian and who is a combatant. A civilian is often a combatant who has temporarily abandoned his weapons.

--Both the Taliban and the Tamil Tigers have used past ceasefires and truces to regroup, re-arm and consolidate their positions.

--Both the Taliban and the Tigers have an incentive to inflate claims of civilian casualties. Both the Pakistani and Sri Lankan governments have an interest in deprecating such claims. In reality it may never be possible to determine the number of civilian casualties.

Under these sorts of circumstances what are armies combating insurgencies to do?

How do you deal with insurgencies in which the combatants have embedded themselves within the civilian population?

For what it's worth here is a link to the relevant protocol of the Geneva Convention.

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm

International law MAY in some cases inhibit the actions of a state. It usually does not deter insurgents

what i see is govt killing its own people

just as here we have a war on drug users[so govt can use the rules of war to oppress the very people GOVT is supposed to be serving]

how govt is supposed to deal with its people is provide service and saftey to ITS PEOPLE[not suport big buisness exploiting their populations by holding them down]

justice delayed is justice denied

just like here we declare smokers scum[govts elswhere declare possably legitimate please from the public as insurgency]

how dare people try to resist govt oppression[it reveals the power of the media that one mans insurgent is an others terrorist or an others freedom fighter]

lest we forget who created the taliban?
the very cia agencies and govt's now attacking them

its about who rules and who does as they are told[govts should observe diplomicy[and service not war upon its own people[it has the tools of public service[education ,welfare. licencing, courts police judges,media..[but not to oppress its people but to serve needs and their saftey]..when govt dont serve it oppresses

what we are seeing is global oppression,party politics,indigenant versis invader. oppressed versus oppressor, brother fighting brother [welcome to the neo[new]world...order]..the same old dis-order that sees the have's.. become elites and the have nots dying and dispossesed[looted into eternal poverty]

im seeing the same as the days of old..[where the one king sent his troops into the other..[cousens]..kings realm..to passify the other kings peasents,..sick of paying unfair taxes,or the tyrant kings demands

[when they are both doing each others passification of their relitives peasentry/populous]..

both taking turns to loot and plunder the peasants,..ever running from their homes,..so the 'opposing' [mercenary]..hired.army can loot them into perpetual peasentry..

the left hand..right hand paradime,is how you deal with the peasents]

learn to see the big picture the media dosnt report

see indigenant owners [millions] walking away from their houses/fields,..shoved into camps

[effectivly dispossesed of their rent free homes,and the fields that grow their food..sepperated from their peers and culture,..by their homes becomming a war zone

the media will stop reporting..then govt moves in its chosen people and the dispossesed stay in their camps..[or are moved into big cities where they work for rent and work for food]

its a typical govt new order policy..[under war powers govts can approprite, and exclude]..can imprison can reap anothers harvest,

we now have hundreds of thousands of empty homes that will be re filled with others deemed worthy to live in them..[according as the invaders decide]

[its basic colonisation one oh one]

it goes on constantly,but media wont ever be reporting on it, but to panic the rest of us[and the dispossed have no voice...[i seen it too many times to not know the truth..[behind populations undergoing ethnic sterilisation by dispossesion of home and heart land]

get them to leave their homes first..[seen it in israel bosnia,with the hutoos and the tutoos,idi amin,russia,china ,tibet, east timor,..you name it

its basic dispossesion leading to the homeless willing to work for food..[with no right of return]

its about getting the indigenant out of their homes into the cities to become wage slaves

Steven,
You have posed the most difficult of questions and I feel for military commanders that have to make the decissions.

The embedding of fighting forces amongst civilian populations also occurs in Afghanistan and Israel faced the same problem in Lebanon and in Gaza.

During WW11, Germany bombed London knowing the civilian casualties would be high and the Allies blanket bombed German towns. Was the use of Atomic bombs on Japan neccessary?

How would I deal with the problem. Definately target the enemy, wherever they are, and try to be as precise as possible.

It is one of those situations where those furthest from the problem will be the most rightous, condemming and have the most to say. Easy to take the high moral ground and be smart after the event.

US/Israel Want Genocide in Sri Lanka

Mossad in Sri Lanka
Mossad has caused Sri Lanka’s fighting to become some of the bloodiest in human history.Entire villages are routinely wiped out. Massacres happen almost daily.Over 70,000 people have been killed.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/world-s-most-dangerous-collaboration
The World’s Most Dangerous Collaboration
By Zaheerul Hassan
December 24, 2008...8:21 pm
http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2008/12/24/the-world-most-dangerous-coll...

http://www.wordofmouthexperiment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=993&view=pr...
SRI LANKA, MOSSAD and the CIA,DRUGS AND ARMS DEALERS
Sunday, August 14, 2005
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/fakealqaeda.html?q=fakealqaeda.html

This memo justified a war of aggression and all the crimes and abuses of power abroad and at home that were justified by the war
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/dearcormed.php

Who Rules America?
By Paul Craig Roberts
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22611.htm
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/15/gop-democratic-leader-inadvertently-expose-israeli-lobbyists-behind-their-letter-to-obama/

http://lataan.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-will-israel-attack-iran.html
http://lataan.blogspot.com/2009/05/israel-now-agrees-to-tell-us-when-it-is.html
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/CIA_chief_in_secret_Israel_talks_on_05142009.html
Lawrence Wilkerson Drops an Iraq-Torture Bombshell
By Bob Fertik
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22616.htm
http://murdochspropagandists.blogspot.com/
"Ugly" Questions for Gen. Myers
By Ray McGovern
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22617.htm
http://lataan.blogspot.com/2009/04/israeli-rhetoric-over-iran-becoming.html
So Long Since Dreaming Made Sense.
By Paul A. Moore
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22613.htm
http://www.prisonplanet.com/israel-ups-war-training-despite-us-discontent.html

Are the people who 'really run the world' meeting this weekend?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1085589.html
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=5959&blz=1
http://www.prisonplanet.com/tucker-confirms-geithner-presence-at-bilderberg-meeting.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/tucker-bilderberg-owns-obama.html
The attacks of 9/11, be they whatever they were,could not have possibly been accomplished without the complicity of the military
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/9-11BasicQuestions.html
Does that mean it is anti-Semitic to criticize Israel?
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg12-2009may12,0,1363776.story
http://murdochspropagandists.blogspot.com/2009/05/australian-murdoch-islamophobe.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1085215.html