Small Wars Journal

The Taliban Got Way Deadlier in 2019, Says Pentagon’s SIGAR

Fri, 11/01/2019 - 12:06am

The Taliban Got Way Deadlier in 2019, Says Pentagon’s SIGAR by Katie Bo Williams – Defense One

Taliban attacks that wounded or killed civilians or U.S.-allied troops spiked this summer ahead of September’s turbulent national elections and the disintegration of the U.S.-led peace process. 

Roughly half of the group’s 3,500 attacks between June and August caused casualties, a 24 percent rise over the previous quarter and 10 percent more than the same period in 2018, according to the latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR. 

Most of those successful attacks occurred in the south of the country, others in the north and the west. The single worst-hit province was Helmand. 

The number of Afghan security forces killed or wounded rose by 5 percent compared to the same period last year. Seven American servicemembers were killed in action between mid-July and mid-October, bringing the 2019 total to 17 killed and 124 wounded in action. That’s the highest annual total of U.S. combat casualties in the past five years, according to the Defense Department…

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