US deaths reach 101 for the year in Afghanistan

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-25 14:02

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban insurgents once derided as a ragtag rabble unable to match US troops have transformed into a fighting force -- one advanced enough to mount massive conventional attacks and claim American lives at a record pace.

The US military suffered its 101st death of the year in Afghanistan last week when Sgt. 1st Class David J. Todd Jr., a 36-year-old from Marrero, La., died of gunfire wounds while helping train Afghan police in the northwest. The total number of US dead last year -- 111 -- was a record itself and is likely to be surpassed.

An Afghan refugee puts his bird cage on the wall outside his temporary makeshift home on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 25, 2008. [Agencies]

Top US generals, European presidents and analysts say the blame lies to the east, in militant sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan. As long as those areas remain havens where fighters arm, train, recruit and plot increasingly sophisticated ambushes, the Afghan war will continue to sour.

"The US is now losing the war against the Taliban," Anthony Cordesman, of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a report Thursday. A resurgent al-Qaida, which was harbored by the Taliban in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks, could soon follow, Cordesman warned.

Cordesman called for the US to treat Pakistani territory as a combat zone if Pakistan does not act. "Pakistan may officially be an ally, but much of its conduct has effectively made it a major threat to US strategic interests."

An influx of Chechen, Turkish, Uzbek and Arab fighters have helped increased the Taliban's military precision, including an ambush by 100 fighters last week that killed 10 French soldiers, and a rush on a US outpost last month by 200 militants that killed nine Americans.

Multi-direction attacks, flawlessly executed ambushes and increasingly powerful roadside and suicide bombs mean the US and 40-nation NATO-led force will in all likelihood suffer its deadliest year in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on a visit to Kabul last week, said he knows that something must "be raised with Pakistan's government, and I will continue to do so." French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who rushed to Afghanistan after the French attack, warned Thursday that "terrorism is winning."

"Military sanctuaries are expanding in the (Pakistani) tribal areas," Gen. David McKiernan, the American four-star general in charge of the 50,000-strong NATO-led force here, told The Associated Press last week. McKiernan has called for another three brigades of US forces -- roughly 10,000 troops -- to bolster the 33,000 strong US force here.

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