Reports from the African Union about major fighting in the past two weeks had major numbers of insurgents and civilians being slain in and around Mogadishu, with only a handful of confirmed AU troops slain. It is now being confirmed that those reports were false.
As has so often been the case in the past, the African Union spokesmen deliberately underreported their own casualties in the fighting, according to the Associated Press, which says that rather than six slain, as the official report insisted, at least 53 AU troops, largely Burundian, were slain in the offensive.
The offensive began on February 19, and was aimed at seizing more of the territory in the capital city for the self-proclaimed Somali government. The fighting calmed down recently, and the reports were noteworthy because despite the claims of lopsided death tolls, the AU didn’t appear to successfully take any territory.
The African Union has yet to comment on the revised death toll. Local medical personnel suggested that the civilian death toll was also like in excess of 100, somewhat more than had been previously acknowledged. The al-Shabaab insurgency likewise has yet to confirm the AU claims “hundreds” of their fighters were slain in the offensive, but as with the AU their reports on tolls are usually suspect.
Spc. Jason M. Weaver, 22, of Aneheim, Calif., died March 3 in Kandahar province Afghanistan from an IED attack.
Curious Jason, you seam to understand the importance of reporting sizable combat death totals of AU, Burundian, troops and the relevance as to just how good are these Burundian troops.
When it comes to reporting US combat deaths in Afghanistan at AntiWar the concept that "maybe the US isn't doing so well in Helmand and Kandahar because a US soldier dies there every other day", is somehow lost on you.
You cannot see that the US military, NATO, the Western press, under report US combat deaths in Afghanistan? For the very same obvious reasons you point out so clearly in your article concerning the deliberate under reported Burundian combat deaths in Somalia.
So 57 Burundian soldiers died in the offensive. Forty to sixty US soldiers died in Afghanistan nearly every month of the year from last spring to early winter 2011. Surely you can see the importance of reporting the relentless stream of US combat deaths for all the reasons you state in your article above? The DOD reports US combat deaths from Kandahar and Helmand often several times a week but no Western media outlet reports them .