US Deaths In Afghanistan Drop Sharply In November

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From 'AP': One American serviceman died in Afghanistan in November, a dramatic drop from earlier months, which the U.S. military attributed to their campaign against insurgent leaders, operations by Afghan and Pakistani forces and the onset of winter. Twice this year, monthly U.S. death tolls in Afghanistan surpassed the monthly toll in Iraq. U.S. troops suffered an average of 21 deaths in Afghanistan each month this year from May to October - by far the deadliest six-month period in Afghanistan for American forces since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. The Afghan Defense Ministry does not release fatality figures.

Lt. Colonel Rumi Nielson-Green, the spokeswoman at the U.S. base at Bagram, cautioned that one month of data does not make a trend "but may be an indicator." She noted that operations conducted by U.S. forces last summer against insurgent areas and bomb-making networks helped lower November's violence. Those efforts likely contributed to a 40 percent drop in IED attacks in October, compared with September, and may have pushed down troop death last month as well.

In addition, U.S. forces also pressed ahead in November with what commanders call the Winter Campaign. "This campaign is designed to create the conditions of lowering enemy capabilities, diminishing their support areas both by hard-power and soft, and continue strengthening border operations to complement the Pakistani efforts in the FATA," she said, referring to Pakistan's northwestern Federally Administered Tribal Areas. She said Pakistani military operations in Bajur have also helped security in Afghanistan.

Insurgents in Afghanistan, particularly in mountainous areas, typically scale back their operations during the winter months, and that may have contributed to the declining trend, U.S. military spokesman Colonel Jerry O'Hara said. "That's some of it," he said. "But really we attribute it more toward our improvement in our tactics and techniques and procedures, along with the increased capability of the Afghan security forces."

O'Hara said the number of attacks in the Kabul region was 50 percent lower in January to October this year than during the same 10-month period in 2007. "And again, we attribute that to not only the Afghan security forces, but you have to give credit to the Afghan people for their personal involvement in the form of tips and their reports to Afghan security forces," he said.

Eleven U.S. troops died in Afghanistan in November 2007, meaning the year-on-year drop is also significant. The U.S. still has about 150,000 troops in Iraq, but violence there has fallen off dramatically in recent months. Over the past six months it has become more dangerous to serve in Afghanistan, where the death rate among U.S. troops has been higher than in Iraq. A near-record 32,000 American forces are deployed in Afghanistan. Despite the vastly greater number of Americans deployed in Iraq, in two months this year more U.S. forces died in Afghanistan than Iraq. Sixteen U.S. troops died in Iraq last month.

O'Hara said the military mourns every death and that the number of casualties is not a measure of effectiveness for the military. "Our measures of effectiveness are increased security, increases in development, increases in people's attitudes toward their own well being," said O'Hara. "And certainly we're always adjusting our tactics based on what we see on the battlefield and what we are able to learn through intelligence about the insurgents."

The commander of NATO, General John Craddock, said last week that the Taliban insurgency was growing more "virulent," saying violence jumped by 40 percent this year. More than 5,900 people (mostly militants) have died in insurgency related violence in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press count of figures from Afghan and Western officials.