Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
November 17, 2018
The death toll among Afghanistan’s security forces since 2015 is close to 29,000, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has revealed, providing a figure far higher than anything previously acknowledged by the government.
Ghani disclosed the figure during a video appearance this week before the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, a school where he once taught as a professor of anthropology.
Ghani said that since the start of 2015, when Afghan police and army units took over primary responsibility for Afghanistan’s security after a partial withdrawal of NATO troops, “28,529 of our security forces have lost their lives and become martyrs for our freedom.”
In the same time frame, 58 Americans were killed, he said.
“I would like to salute the patriotism of the Afghan security forces, every single one of whom is a volunteer,” Ghani said.
“We have no conscription, nobody is forced, and if there was not a patriotic impulse, I don’t think that people would sacrifice their lives for a pay of $200.”
The Afghan government has previously provided casualty figures only for individual incidents of clashes between Afghan troops and militants, but the figures it has provided have suggested the overall death toll might be large.
In one incident alone last year, the government reported that a Taliban attack on a military compound in Balkh Province left more than 130 army personnel dead.
The Afghan government and U.S. military have previously been reluctant to disclose the full extent of Afghan soldiers killed, apparently out of concern that acknowledging the large death toll would undermine confidence and underscore the country’s fragile security situation.
Previous estimates given for the total Afghan security forces killed in 2015 were around 5,000, with another 15,000 wounded.
Since that time, estimates have suggested the death toll was accelerating despite claims of progress in the war against the Taliban by both U.S. and Afghan leaders.
A year ago, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan General John Nicholson said casualty rates among Afghan security forces were starting to drop as the United States increased its air strikes against the Taliban and Afghan forces adopted military reforms.
But a recent report from the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction cited the NATO mission in Kabul as saying the toll between May and October was worse than ever for Afghan forces, without providing specific figures.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis this month said more than 1,000 “Afghan lads” were killed or wounded just in August and September.
After more than 17 years of war, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has stepped up efforts to settle the conflict peacefully.
U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad was appointed to start a peace process with the Taliban. He met with Ghani on November 10 after meeting with a Taliban delegation in Doha in October.
With reporting by AFP
Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Other Security News
- Govt Forces Advancing In Ghazni: Officials
- Iranian-trained Fatemiyoun Division an ‘extraordinary threat’: ex-Afghan security official
An Outlook :
.
>.. US population= Roughly 350 millions
>.. Afghanistan populationa= around
30 millions.
========
That means that the ratio of the population of the US to Afghanistan is roughly 10.
.
So; according to Ghani;! 28000 Afghan hired soldiers and roughly about the same numbers of oppositions lost their lives since 2015.
.
((In order to simplify; the much higher rate of the civilian losses will be totally ignored))
Ghani also mentioned that US loses amounted to only 57 individuals during that very same time period since 2015.
…………….
………
….
Now; if you closely look at the ratio of the US military advisers killed in Afghan killing fields; then you clearly be shocked to hear this extremely large ratio of the Afghan citizens who lost their lives compared to US losses ((trainers and mercenaries)) during that very same period of times.
=========
=========
The ratio shockingly amounts to
roughly
1 to 1000.
=====••••••
***
*JUST THINK
ABOUT
IT !
==========
*
*KICK THE RATS
OUT
OF
THR COUNTRY !
I am pretty sure that there are still plenty
of
honorable folks
in
surrounding Islamic countries
to
force their governments
into
proper actions.
***
**
*
SHARE YOUR CONCERNS
WITH
THOSE
HONORABLE FOLKS
TO
STAND UNITED
AGAINST THE
SAVAGE AGRESSORS !
WE ASk THE
REGULAR
MUSLIM FOLKS
OF THE
SURROUNDING COUNTRIES
TO
STAND FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE PROPLE OF AFGHANISTAN- STOP GENOCIDES
OF
TTHE YOUNG PEOPLE AND OTHERS,
IN
AFGHANISTAN!
Those folks
must get persuaded to
force
their
passive governments
Into
honorable actions.