[Dawn] International forces in Afghanistan have released new data showing violence trending downward in their favor, only a day after the UN reported considerably more festivities and other attacks per month than last year.The quick scheduling of the news conference to unveil the statistics underscored NATO's
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
sensitivity about how the war is perceived back home as the US and other nations start to withdraw some forces with an eye toward pulling all combat troops out by the end of 2014.
NATO's statistics, released Thursday, show that Death Eater attacks in the first eight months of the year were down two per cent compared with the same period last year.
| A small enough difference that it may or may not be indicative... |
| Yes, that certainly is significant, and a significant difference from the above. |
| Because really there is no difference between the good guys and the bad guys? Once again the U.N. shames itself. One can conclude from that datum, though, that our side is much more active than previously. |
| Arrests and seizures are good though, right? |
| Plenty of Pakistani madrassah boys continue to step up the the plate, O Dawn journalist? Because I hear Afghan parents are refusing to send their sons to be chewed up in the ISI jihad maw. |
That resilience renews questions about whether the Afghan government and its Western allies have a solid grip on security, and whether the Afghan forces can ever secure the nation by themselves.
| Especially while neighboring Pakistan keeps sending over what they fondly believe to be untraceable proxies to wage insecurity across the land. |
Roadside bomb activity, which includes both kabooms and attempted bombings, rose 25 per cent in the eight-month period compared with last year.
Direct-fire attacks from bully boyz fell by 30 per cent in June through August compared to the same period last year.
"The actual enemy-initiated attacks are down," said German Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a front man for the coalition. "That is what we are observing as an indicator that actually violence trends are going down in our favor."
The coalition defines "enemy-initiated attacks" as all bad turban actions, such as direct and indirect fire, shooting at aircraft from the ground, roadside kaboomings and mine strikes. Potential or attempted attacks by forces of Evil are not included in this figure.
Since May of this year, the monthly number of these attacks has been lower than the same month in 2010, something not seen since 2007, the coalition said.
Moreover, the coalition said that in 17 of the past 22 weeks, these attacks were lower than the same week of last year.
"The important thing is that we are looking at a decrease overall in comparison to last year ... with a higher number of troops" in the country, Jacobson said.
Coalition officials at the briefing said the international force expected a 17 per cent to 30 per cent increase in Death Eater-initiated attacks this year partly because of the 10,000 to 25,000 additional coalition forces and 60,000 more Afghan cops compared with 2010.
In the first eight months of the year, 405 international troops were killed in Afghanistan --16 per cent fewer than the 483 who died in the same period last year, according to a tally by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
Jacobson said the coalition and the UN need to put their reports side-by-side to find out how the data is being compiled.
"This doesn't mean there is controversy or there is a conflict," he said. "It just means that we are looking at certain incidents from a certain angle and different perspective."
| Indeed. Some might consider that a matter of concern. |
He told news hounds after a UN Security Council meeting Thursday that the situation in Afghanistan had improved "in a purely military way," but at the same time there has been an increase in civilian casualties.
In a midyear report, the UN said 1,462 Afghan civilians bit the dust in the crossfire of the battle between Taliban bully boyz and Afghan, US and NATO forces.
During the first half of last year, 1,271 Afghan non-combatants were killed, mostly by roadside kabooms.
| ...none of which were planted by Afghan or Coalition troops. This matters. |
In the first six months of the year, 79 civilian deaths were attributed to air strikes --up 14 per cent from the same period last year, the UN report said.
| How many times does 79 go into 1271, O clever Dawn journalist? That's one measure of how many time more murderous your pet jihadis are than the Coalition and Afghan troops combined. |