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Post by cammy on Aug 4, 2009 16:47:55 GMT 1
DEADLY WEEKS AHEAD OF POLL
July was the deadliest month for foreign forces in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, with at least 71 killed. August has so far followed that deadly trend.
A total of 41 U.S. troops were killed in July, far more than the previous monthly high of 26 in September 2008.
Britain has also suffered its worst battlefield casualties in almost a generation, with the 22 killed in July taking its toll in the 8-year-old war to 191, 12 more than were killed in Iraq.
Attacks across Afghanistan this year had already reached their worst level since 2001. They escalated further after thousands of U.S. Marines launched a major operation in southern Helmand province last month, long a Taliban stronghold and the source of most of the opium that helps fund the insurgency.
The U.S. operation, along with a similar British offensive, is the first under U.S. President Barack Obama's new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and stabilize Afghanistan.
Civilians are also dying at record rates. The United Nations said last week 1,013 civilians had been killed between January and June this year, up from 818 in the same period last year.
The Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for 59 percent of those deaths, the United Nations said..
There have also been a series of election-related attacks, with one of President Hamid Karzai's campaign convoys ambushed in southeastern Ghazni on Saturday. A bodyguard was killed and a candidate for provincial elections was wounded.
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