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| Afghanistan |
| Afghan forces lose 2,531 killed from Jan 1-May 8 says report |
| 2017-08-02 |
| [AlAhram] A total of 2,531 Afghan cops were killed and 4,238 maimed in the first four months of the year, according to figures released in a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan, a U.S. Congressional watchdog. The figures, from Jan. 1-May 8, were provided to U.S. military authorities by the Afghan government and were consistent with figures from the same period last year, the report said. In an earlier report released in February, SIGAR said at least 6,785 Afghan soldiers and police had been killed in the first 10 months of 2016. The figures, showing around 20 soldiers and police being killed every day, underline the challenge for Resolute Support, the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... -led training and advisory mission trying to build up Afghan cops. The United States is expected to send around 4,000 troops to boost the mission but has yet to announce its long-awaited new strategy for the region. U.S. commanders and officials have warned repeatedly that Afghan forces have been suffering unsustainably high casualties against the Taliban ...Arabic for students... , partly because of tactics that include a heavy reliance on vulnerable static checkpoints. Just last week, around 30 Afghan soldiers were killed in the southern province of Kandahar when their checkpoint was overrun by Taliban fighters. U.S. officers say that troops defending checkpoints suffer as much as 10 times the level of casualties as they do when conducting offensive operations. But they have struggled to persuade Afghan commanders to cut their use, partly because local politicians say the checkpoints are needed as a visible sign of government presence in isolated areas. The SIGAR report also quoted U.S. commanders who assess the fighting between government and bully boy forces as a "stalemate", with government forces in control of 59.7 percent of the country's 407 districts, the same as last quarter. It said The main centres of bully boy strength were in the southern provinces of Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... , Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul as well as Kunduz in the north. Around 3 million people, or about a tenth of the population, were living in areas controlled or influenced by bully boys, with some 21 million living in areas under government control or influence. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #3 That annualizes to 7500 a year. Not nothing, but lower than average South Vietnamese losses (11K) during the Vietnam War. Not great though, because South Vietnam was battling regular troops equipped with heavy artillery and tanks, as well as an insurgency. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2017-08-02 19:26 |
| #2 It's a war of attrition, and has been for decades - what are the opposition losses? And replacement rates? |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2017-08-02 17:11 |
| #1 Having looked at the Herat and Kismayo posts and now this does my total lack of care mean I'm a bad person, or only suffering from compassion fatigue? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2017-08-02 15:45 |