Within no time, another three was added to the list when a suicide bomb stuck Khost. Besides three America soldiers, six Afghan policemen and a translator were killed in the ghostly incident. With this 53 US-NATO soldiers have been killed so far this year. These attacks came as the Pentagon ended a suspension of joint operations with Afghan forces that was imposed after a series of such attacks and in the face of global outrage over the virulent anti-Islam film produced in the US.
More than 17,000 US troops have been wounded in the Afghan war, many of them suffering loss of limbs and grievous brain injuries. Most of the surge in American forces in Afghanistan took place after Barack Obama took over as President in 2009. And this period also accounted more than two thirds of deaths.
Afghanistan figures in the on-going re-election bid of Obama for Presidency and of his challenger Romney. It is not their central campaign theme though.
Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan attacked the Obama administration Monday over last month’s withdrawal of 22,000 troops from Afghanistan, the last of the so-called surge force Obama sent into the war. Some 68,000 American soldiers and Marines are still on duty in the country, along with nearly 40,000 NATO and other foreign forces. After 2014, some 35,000 foreign military personnel will remain in Afghanistan,
The Republicans support Obama’s December 2014 deadline for pulling out all US “combat troops.” Washington has made it clear that even after that tens of thousands of American soldiers would remain in Afghanistan. This statement was aimed at blunting the criticism that like at the end of the war against Soviet occupation forces, this time also the US would leave Kabul alone to fend for itself.
In an interview on the CBS News programme, “60 Minutes”, the top US commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John Allen, has called the so-called “insider” killings “the signature attack” of the Afghanistan war. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen admitted that the insider attacks had “undermined trust and confidence” between foreign troops and their ANA counterparts, but predicted the next year would see a “seamless” transition to the “new mission” after 2014.
The assessment of the German intelligence service, the BND, is different though. According to Der Spiegel magazine, it forecasts a spurt in the blue on green attacks between now and December 2014. It also warns that such attacks may increase after the official “withdrawal” date.
