Casualties – coalition military

Casualties of military forces in Operation Enduring Freedom and the International Security Assistance Force.

Government sources

Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) U.S. Casualty Status, US Department of Defense

Operations in Afghanistan: British Fatalities, Ministry of Defence, UK

Fallen Canadians, National Defence and the Canadian Forces, Canada

Analysis

Bombings rock Afghan city of Kandahar, Nasrat Shoib, The Age, 16 April 2010

As many as six people including foreigners have been killed in a suicide car bombing targeting a foreign security company in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, officials say. Britain said it was investigating after reports that its nationals may have been among the dead in the attack in the provincial capital late on Thursday.

Four German soldiers were also killed and five wounded on Thursday when their patrol came under attack as they were travelling from the northern city of Kunduz to Baghlan, a Taliban stronghold. In northern Afghanistan, the German patrol came under fire from anti-tank grenades or missiles in an attack that came after a visit to Afghanistan by German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.

The latest casualties come less than two weeks after three German soldiers were killed near Kunduz, and bring to 43 the total killed in Afghanistan since Germany’s disputed deployment began in 2002.

Three Afghan soldiers killed, two wounded and one Australian soldier wounded in separate incidents, Media Release, Department of Defence, 2 February 2010

Three Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers have been killed, and two wounded after an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detonated under the vehicle in which they were travelling… Both attacks occurred while the soldiers were on separate patrols north of Tarin Kowt in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, 30 January 2010.

NATO troops clash with Afghan allies, Peter Graff, Sher Ahmad, Hamid Shalizi, Reuters, 30 January 2010

NATO troops clashed with their Afghan allies in a so-called “friendly fire” incident on Saturday, calling in air strikes that killed four Afghan soldiers and stoked anger among villagers. The clashes took place hours after an apparently disgruntled interpreter shot dead two U.S. soldiers at a nearby base.

“Four army soldiers were killed and six wounded when a foreign forces air strike hit their post,” said Shahedullah Shahed, spokesman for Wardak’s governor. He said the strike had targeted an Afghan Army outpost that had been newly established. Foreign forces and Afghan troops were both separately conducting overnight operations when they started shooting at each other, he said.

Aussie ‘facing death penalty in Kabul’, AAP, Yahoo7News, 27 January 2010

A former Australian soldier is facing execution in Afghanistan for the murder of a local security guard that he tried to blame on the Taliban… Robert William Langdon, 38, was arrested in May last year for killing an Afghan security guard, whom he shot four times in the head and body, The Australian newspaper reported on Wednesday. At the time, Langdon was employed by the US-based contractor Four Horsemen International as a security contractor. The man Langdon shot, who was known as Karim, was his colleague.

British dead and wounded in Afghanistan, month by month, Guardian.co.uk, 17 January 2010

2009 was the bloodiest year so far for British troops in Afghanistan. As the number of British deaths in Afghanistan nears 250 – now much higher than Iraq… More complicated are the wounded numbers. Rather than one simple set of statistics, the MoD gives us three – all of which are included as a sheet in the dataset below (and summarised down the page).

Roadside bomb kills eight, Department of Defence, 12 January 2010

Eight Afghan National Army soldiers have been killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan’s Chora Valley. The soldiers were killed on 7 January while conducting a logistics task between two bases operated by Afghan and Australian forces. Chief of Joint Operations Lieutenant General Mark Evans said the incident was a tragedy for the Afghan National Security Forces and the Afghan people they protect.

Members of Australia’s Second Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force and other Coalition soldiers, lined the airstrip at Forward Operating Base Ripley to farewell eight fallen Afghan National Army comrades. The ANA soldiers were killed by an Improvised Explosive Device on 7 January 2010.

Obama set to boost troops, Sheldon Alberts, The Ottawa Citizen, 1 December 2009

The Harper government says the U.S. has not asked Canada, which has about 2,800 troops in Afghanistan, to extend its combat mission. The Canadian death toll stands at 133 since the war began in 2001. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who last weekend reiterated Canada’s plans to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan in 2011, did not get a call from Obama.

US Casualties: The Trends in Iraq and Afghanistan, Anthony H. Cordesman, CSIS, 6 August, 2008

Recent media attention has focused on the fact that the number of soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan has recently surpasses the number of soldiers killed in Iraq. However, extrapolating trends from US casualty data is extremely complex. This analysis shows how different ways of counting casualties alter the analysis of trends in recent conflicts.

One consistent result is the importance of considering wounded in action relative to killed in action in measuring the intensity of combat, and the level of sacrifice made by the US military. The trend in total killed and wounded is far more relevant than the trend in killed alone. Furthermore, the a comparison of the level of casualties compared to the number of troops in theater reveals higher relative casualties in Afghanistan for most of the past 12 months.

Military fatality rates (by cause) in Afghanistan and Iraq: a measure of hostilities, Sheila M Bird and Clive B Fairweather, International Journal of Epidemiology, May 21, 2007

“Out of 537 coalition fatalities in Iraq in 2006 to September 17, 2006, 457 (85%) were hostile, but only half were in Afghanistan (October 2001 to September 17, 2006: 52%, 249/478). Air losses accounted for 5% fatalities in Iraq, but 32% in Afghanistan. IEDs claimed three out of five hostile deaths in Iraq, only a quarter in Afghanistan. Deaths per fatal IED incident averaged 1.5. In period 1, 50/117 military deaths in Afghanistan were UK or Canadian from 6750 personnel, a fatality rate of 19/1000/year, nearly four times the US rate of 5/1000/year in Iraq (based on 280 deaths). Sixty out of 117 fatalities in Afghanistan occurred as clusters of two or more deaths. In period 2, fatality rates changed: down by two-thirds in Afghanistan for UK and Canadian forces to 6/1000/year (18 deaths), up by 46% for US troops in Iraq to 7.5/1000/year (416 deaths).”

Enduring Freedom: Casualties, CNN International.com

Coalition casualties in Afghanistan, Wikipedia

Operation Enduring Freedom [Afghanistan]: Casualties, Iraq Casualty Coalition Count

Afghanistan section of otherwise Iraq-focussed US ngo site with large searchable database.

Operation Enduring Freedom [Afghanistan]: Casualties – by Nationality – Australia, Iraq Casualty Coalition Count

British military fatalities in Afghanistan, BBC News

British Forces casualties in Afghanistan since 2001, Wikipedia

In the line of duty: Canada’s casualties, Indepth Afghanistan CBC News Online [Updated October 2, 2006]

Canadian Forces casualties in Afghanistan, Wikipedia.

As the caskets leave Kandahar, Chris Brown, Kandahar Dispatches, cbc.ca, 13 April 2007