Afghan foreign troops death toll hits 500 for 2010

KABUL: The number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan this year has reached at least 500, compared with 521 in all of 2009, according to an independent monitoring site on Monday and a tally compiled by Reuters.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said an ISAF service member was killed in an insurgent attack in the east on Sunday. No other details were immediately available.

There has been a sharp increase in foreign military deaths, many of them American, as foreign troops launch more operations to counter a growing Taleban-led insurgency that has spread out of traditional strongholds in the south and east.

At least five ISAF troops have been killed since Friday, including the first Georgian killed in the conflict.

Violence across Afghanistan has hit its worst since the Taleban were ousted by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001. Military and civilian casualties are at record levels, with US and NATO commanders warning of more tough fighting ahead.

The spiralling death tolls come despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan and will be another worrying statistic when US President Barack Obama conducts a strategy review of the war in December.

Public support for the war is flagging, with a recent opinion poll by NBC television and the Wall Street Journal showing as many as seven in 10 Americans saying they did not believe the war would end successfully.

The traditional summer fighting period has taken a heavy toll on foreign troops this year. A total of 102 were killed in June, the deadliest month of the war, followed by 88 in July and another 80 in August, according to independent monitor www.iCasualties.org.

The latest casualties take to 2,068 the number killed since 2001, almost half of them in 2009 and 2010. Roughly 60 percent of those killed were Americans.

Despite the heavy military toll, ordinary Afghans continue to bear the brunt of the war.

A United Nations report released last month showed that civilian casualties had risen by 31 percent in the first six months of 2010, compared with the same period last year, with more than three-quarters of the casualties caused by insurgents.

Comments

DASTAGIR

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Afghanistan have been the graveyard of the empires for centuries. The war in Afghanistan is going for over 9 years, and a victory is impossible there. Some members of the coalition forces are going to withdraw their troops. But Obama and his generals seem confident about winning the war there. It is going to be Obama's Vietnam. He got Nobel Prize for Peace for public speech.

AC

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The civilian casualty figures are always blamed on the Taliban. The truth of the matter is that, it is the occupying NATO forces which kill and maim innocent civilians by the dozens at a time.

The Afghan War Diary published by Wiki Leaks showed that numerous civilian casualties were never reported by NATO. War Crimes committed by the occupying forces will never see the light of day. Even if they do, the culprits will never be brought to justice.


YAM BAHADUR

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The performence of Afgan Kids, without any known sophisticated weapon, 500 in 2010 (about four months in hand), are encouraging. With the experience of 2010, next year (2011) might be better. In the past, in Lebanon more than 300 (three hundred) foreign troops (highest record in a day) were killed. Perhaps they were all American troops.

RIZWAN

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Obama ' NO YOU CAN'T'.......just because you won an election with the popular phrase ' yes we can' does not mean that you apply it to everything that you come across. You should have felt the first jolt when you lost the bid for Olympics in Chicago where they completely ignored the presidency and your country. I am sure Russian military officers get together every weekend to discuss how USA is going to break into small pieces just like Russia once Afghanistan is done with them. A failed economy, two failed wars, rising unemployment, rising medical cost and world hate are a few things that will just disintegrate USA into 50 new countries.

ISMAEEL MARIKAR

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AFGHANISTAN HAS NEVER BEEN CONQUERED.AFGHANS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11. THE RUSSIANS LEARNT THE HARD WAY , WITHDRAWING
AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET UNION, AND THE "BREAKING OF THE BERLIN WALL" THE RUSSIANS WARNED THE AMERICANS BUT THEY NEVER LEARN. MORE AMERICANS HAVE DIED IN AFGHANISTAN THAN THE
WTC DEMOLITION ON 9/11.
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