July, August deadliest months of Afghan war for US

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-28 11:05

US Marine Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, second from right, walks through the bazaar in the village of Dahaneh during a visit to see progress by Marines and Afghan security forces there Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009, in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan. [Agencies]

KABUL: A roadside bomb and gunfire attack killed a US service member in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, a death that pushed August into a tie with July as the deadliest months of the eight-year war.

The death brought to 44 the number of US troops who have died in Afghanistan this month with four days left in August.

More than 60,000 US troops are in the country - a record number - to fight rising insurgent violence. The number of roadside bombs deployed by militants across the country has skyrocketed, and US forces have moved into new and deadlier areas this summer, in part to help secure the country's Aug. 20 presidential election.

The top US commander in Afghanistan released his new counterinsurgency strategy Thursday, telling troops that the supply of militants is "effectively endless" and that US and NATO forces need to see the country through the eyes of its villagers.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal said troops "must change the way that we think, act and operate." McChrystal hopes to install a new approach to counterinsurgency where troops will make the safety of villagers the top priority, above killing an endless supply of militants.

"An insurgency cannot be defeated by attrition; its supply of fighters, and even leadership, is effectively endless," the new guidelines said.

When US and NATO troops battle a group of 10 militants and kill two of them, the relatives of the two dead insurgents will want revenge and will likely join the insurgency, the guidelines say, spelling out the formula: "10 minus 2 equals 20 (or more) rather than 8."

"This is part of the reason why eight years of individually successful kinetic actions have resulted in more violence," McChrystal said.

He called on troops to think of how they would expect a foreign army to operate in their home countries, "among your families and your children, and act accordingly," to try to win over the Afghan population.

Violence is on the rise in Afghanistan even as it falls in Iraq, where nearly twice as many US troops are still based. Five US troops have died in Iraq this month, three fewer than in July.

A statement from the NATO-led force in Kabul said the US service member died in southern Afghanistan when a patrol responded to the bombing and gunfire attack. No other details were released. Militants unleashed a wave of attacks in southern Afghanistan last week that helped suppress voter turnout there.

Afghan election officials have released two batches of vote tallies that show President Hamid Karzai with 44.8 percent of the vote and top challenger Abdullah Abdullah with 35.1 percent, based on returns from 17 percent of polling stations. The next partial results are expected Saturday.

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