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In this Dec. 14, 2001 file photo, Afghan anti-Taliban fighters take cover in a foxhole, during incoming sniper fire from al Qaida positions in the White Mountains near Tora Bora, Afghanistan. [Agencies] |
KABUL, Afghanistan - More US military deaths in the last 10 months of the Afghan war than in the first five years of the conflict. More boots on the ground than in Iraq.
As the US military death toll in the Afghan conflict reached the 1,000 mark, a fight that has become "Obama's war" now faces its greatest challenge -- a high-risk campaign to win over a hostile population in the Taliban's southern heartland.
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The 1,000 US military death occurred in a roadside bombing Friday -- just before the Memorial Day weekend when America honors the dead in all its wars.
A NATO statement did not identify or give the nationality of the victim. US spokesman Col. Wayne Shanks said the trooper was American -- the 32nd US war death this month by an Associated Press count.
The list of US service members killed in combat in Afghanistan begins with Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Ross Chapman of San Antonio, Texas, a 31-year-old career Special Forces soldier ambushed on Jan. 4, 2002, after attending a meeting with Afghan leaders in Khost province.
He left a wife and two children. The base where a suicide bomber killed seven CIA employees last December bears his name.
The AP bases its tally on Defense Department reports of deaths suffered as a direct result of the Afghan conflict, including personnel assigned to units in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Uzbekistan. Other news organizations count deaths suffered by service members assigned elsewhere as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, which includes operations in the Philippines, the Horn of Africa and at the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The grim milestone reflects the acceleration in fighting since President Barack Obama shifted the focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, where al-Qaida plotted the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States.
Yet Obama's decision brought a heavy price.
In the last 10 months, at least 313 US service members have been killed in the war -- more than the 295 who died in the first five years of the conflict. More than 430 of the US dead were killed since Obama took office in January 2009.
The number of US troops in Afghanistan has now surpassed the total in Iraq -- roughly 94,000 in Afghanistan compared with 92,000 in Iraq. In 2008, the US force in Afghanistan numbered about 30,000.
For many of the US service members in Afghanistan, the 1,000-mark passed without fanfare.
Capt. Nick Ziemba of Wilbraham, Massachusetts, serving with the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment in southern Afghanistan, said 1,000 was an arbitrary number and would have no impact on troop morale or operations.
"We're going to continue to work," he said.
At least 675 troops from allied countries have also died in the war, according to an AP tally based on announcements of foreign governments. They include 288 service members from Britain.
Establishing the number of Afghan dead is far more difficult, particularly for the first years of the war. The United Nations reported in January that an increasing number of Afghan civilians have been killed over the past three years, with a total of at least 6,053 since 2007.
The 1,000th US death comes midway between Obama's decision last December to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan and a review of the war's progress that he has promised by the end of the year.
After a long and wrenching conflict in Iraq -- which has claimed nearly 4,400 American military lives -- Obama has promised not to be backed into an open-ended war in Afghanistan. He has insisted that some US troops will come home beginning in July 2011.
That has not been enough to satisfy his anti-war supporters. At the same time, mid-2011 may be too soon to turn the tide of the war.