afghanistanAs for Rumsfeld’s claim that the Taliban were no longer a military
threat to the Afghan government, this came home to haunt the American
administration as the Taliban rearmed and resumed their war against
what they claimed was a foreign occupation. From 2004 onwards the
number of American and foreign troops killed by insurgents rose year
on year, peaking in 2010 with 711 deaths, of which 499 were Americans
and 103 British. The following year more than 3,300 u.s. servicemen
were wounded by Improvised Explosive Devices (ieds), mostly suicide
attacks and mines. By the end of 2016 American casualties had reached
2,247 dead and 20,000 wounded in action. In addition more than 1,000
troops from other nationalities had been killed. In the first five months
of 2017, Afghan National defence personnel killed in action came to
2,531, with 4,238 wounded. 25 As the promised era of peace and security
melted into thin air, civilian casualties too rose exponentially. According
to unama, between 1 January 2009 and 30 June 2016 more than 22,000
Afghan civilians died and more than 40,000 were injured. A total of
11,418 civilians were documented as having died in the conflict in 2016,
the highest annual figure since unama began recording civilian losses.
Security incidents too were at their highest level and more than 666,000
Afghans were internally displaced as a result of the conflict, a 40 per cent
increase on the previous year. 26
Memorials to British soldiers killed in Afghanistan after 2002 in Kabul’s Qabr-i Gora, or
European Cemetery. These plaques are poignantly located above reclaimed and restored
gravestones of British solders killed in the Second Anglo-Afghan War.