The method of the raids, especially the forced entry of houses and invasion of women’s quarters, let alone killing of women, is deeply offensive culturally to Afghans. Although coalition forces say most raids are conducted using a “soft knock” — calling by loudspeaker for people to come out — there are still numerous accounts of forced entry and cases of men being shot in their beds next to their wives.

The raids and attendant sweeping arrests have become the primary complaint of rural communities, human rights officials say. When Lt. Col. Aziz Ahmad took up a new job as police chief of Shah Joy District in the southeastern province of Zabul, townspeople asked immediately what he could do to stop the night raids.

Just two weeks earlier American forces had raided the house of a Taliban member at night and killed him and his wife, leaving four small children alone. “We are trying to find relatives to take care of them,” the police chief said.

“It turns people against the government and the foreign forces,” he said.

Erica Gaston of the Open Society Institute, who is compiling a new report on night raids, said that while in general night raids had become more accurate, and that the conduct of forces had improved, she still encountered cases of unarmed people being shot in the head, or being shot when doing things like picking up a cellphone, running away or rushing to help a wounded relative.

“People in the villages are more scared of the Americans than of the Taliban because of these raids,” said Gul Badshah Majidi, a legislator from the eastern province of Paktia. In Zabul Province, to the south, the Afghan Army commander, Gen. Jamaluddin Sayed, said that one of the reasons villagers were joining the local police program was not just to keep the Taliban out, but also to prevent raids on their houses.

NATO officials have dismissed many of the allegations from Afghans as Taliban propaganda. They cite cases of Taliban members ordering local elders to call officials and even President Karzai with fictitious reports of civilian casualties.

But the military is intent on mitigating political fallout and training Afghans to take over leadership of the raids.