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More than 1,000 soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001
Kabul (AFP) Oct 27, 2008 The number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001 has passed 1,000, according to the icasualties.org website Monday. International soldiers arrived in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban and have remained to track down Taliban and other insurgents and help to rebuild the war-ravaged country. The independent site, which tracks casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq in the absence of an official collation, said Monday 1,002 soldiers involved in the campaign in Afghanistan have lost their lives. This includes two coalition troops killed in a suicide bombing in the northern province of Baghlan Monday. A third international soldier died after a bombing in the west the same day. There are about 33,000 US soldiers in the campaign in Afghanistan, making up about half of the international forces here. Since 2001, the force has lost 624 troops in combat or accidents, according to icasualties. About 121 British troops have been killed, as well as 97 Canadians, according to the defence ministries of both nations. Others included in the death toll are: 30 German soldiers, 23 French, 16 Dutch, 16 Danes, 13 Italians and eight Poles. The majority of troops killed in Afghanistan died in bomb blasts, mostly "improvised explosive devices". The number of soldiers killed in the first 10 months of this year, at 253 according to icasualties, is well beyond the total of 237 for the whole of 2007. With the rise in fatalities, Afghanistan is rapidly surpassing Iraq as the most dangerous battlefield in the US-led "war on terror". In May more foreign soldiers were killed in Afghanistan than Iraq, even though the number of international troops here is about half. But overall, Iraq is by far the deadliest battleground with more than 4,500 international soldiers killed since the March 2003 invasion, 4,180 of them Americans. There are close to 70,000 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, more than 50,000 of them in a NATO-led force drawn from 40 countries and the remainder in the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom campaign. Related Links News From Across The Stans
Suspected US strike kills 10 in Pakistan: officials
Islamabad (AFP) Oct 26, 2008Suspected US spy drones fired missiles on Sunday into a militant training camp in a stronghold of Pakistan's top Taliban commander, killing at least 10 people, security officials said. |
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