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| Afghanistan |
| U.S. General Says Afghan Troops Being Killed in Unprecedented Numbers |
| 2014-11-06 |
| [AnNahar] Afghan troops are dying on the battlefield in unprecedented numbers after having taken over from NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... -led forces, and the corpse count is "not sustainable," a top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday. Afghan army and police have suffered a 6.5 percent spike in casualties this year, with 4,634 killed in combat in 2014, compared to 4,350 killed for all of 2013, said Lieutenant General Joseph Anderson, the number two ranking U.S. officer in Afghanistan. Afghan forces are being outfitted with more protective gear and adopting more effective tactics to counter roadside kabooms planted by Taliban bully boys, "but they do need to decrease their casualty rate," Anderson told news hounds via video link from Kabul. The Kabul government's forces had improved their emergency medical care for maimed soldiers but there was more work to be done as the current casualty rate was untenable, he said. "All those things have to continue to improve to reduce those numbers, because those numbers are not sustainable in the long term," he said. The general, head of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) joint command, added that the casualty numbers had been expected to rise with Afghan forces now fully in charge of security and NATO combat forces rapidly scaling back. "We expected that (corpse count) actually to be much higher based on the role they've played and where they've been," Anderson said. Despite the mounting casualties, Anderson said "the Afghan national security forces are winning, and this is a hugely capable fighting force who have been holding their ground against the enemy." The Afghans have struggled to build up emergency medical care for soldiers maimed on the battlefield after having relied on NATO aircraft for evacuations. Until last year, the number of Afghans who survived their combat wounds was less than 50 percent, a dismal rate comparable to what American soldiers faced 150 years ago in the US Civil War, according to military officials. With nearly 9,000 Afghan soldiers killed in less than two years, the numbers far exceed the corpse count for American troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq over the past decade. More than 4,400 Americans were killed in Iraq between 2003 to 2011 and more than 2,000 in Afghanistan since 2001. There are 38,000 troops in NATO's U.S.-led force in Afghanistan and by the end of the year the number is due to drop to 12,500 troops, including 9,800 Americans. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #7 No offense to the dead guys, but a "6.5 percent spike" just sounds like noise. Although the decimal point *does* make it much more serious. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2014-11-06 22:38 |
| #6 Paging General Dostom, General Dostom to the white courtesy phone please. |
| Posted by: Injun Ulomoque8628 2014-11-06 21:20 |
| #5 Bottom line is that these numbers should be sustainable. The question is whether Afghanistan's non-Pashtuns want to live under Taliban rule. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2014-11-06 20:38 |
| #4 Afghan army and police have suffered a 6.5 percent spike in casualties this year, with 4,634 killed in combat in 2014, compared to 4,350 killed for all of 2013, said Lieutenant General Joseph Anderson, the number two ranking U.S. officer in Afghanistan. This is peanuts. ARVN suffered 25K dead a year. Aren't these supposed to be Muslims? Don't they go to paradise if they die in battle? |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2014-11-06 20:37 |
| #3 Nobody there to protect them anymore. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2014-11-06 19:17 |
| #2 Nuke Pakistan and the problem ends. |
| Posted by: Snavick Ulusoger9346 2014-11-06 17:41 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Pappy 2014-11-06 08:15 |