NATO Death Toll in Afghanistan Tops 2,000

More than Half Slain in Last Two Years

According to reports collected by iCasualties.org from official reports, over 2,000 troops have now been killed in the war in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion. The figures were independently confirmed by Reuters.

The largest number of slain soldiers came from the US, which lost 1,226. Britain was second with 331, and Canada third with 151. The rest came largely from European nations in NATO.

The milestone comes at a particularly inconvenient time, as yet another review of the Afghan War looms. Polls show an increasing opposition to the war in most NATO nations, and opposition to the international presence among many Afghan officials.

Perhaps the more dramatic figure, however, was that more than half of the deaths came in the last two years. It took nearly seven years to reach the first thousand deaths but 521 were slain in 2009 alone, and 2010 looks to surpass that record by quite a bit.

Officials predict that the record levels of violence, including June 2010’s toll of 103 coalition troops, will continue to worsen through this year. With NATO now openly talking about delaying any significant drawdown until the end of 2014, it must be questioned how many thousands of additional troops will die in the interim.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.