| KABUL: The number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this year, already by far the deadliest in the nine-year campaign against the Taliban, has passed 700. The number of coalition forces killed fighting the Taliban in 2010 stood at 701, days after US President Barack Obama said the war strategy was "on track". The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is fighting an increasingly deadly and expanding Taliban insurgency and the bulk of the dead -- 493 -- are US troops, followed by Britons with 101. When asked about the figures, an ISAF spokesman highlighted increased pushes against the Taliban as part of Obama's surge strategy in the war. "We have been saying there will be increased operations with the increase of troops and the increased focus on insurgent safe havens," the spokesman told. "We expected and continue to expect the enemy to fight back as we push into those areas and clear them." Obama's review came a year after he ordered an extra 30,000 US troops into the war in a bid to defeat Al-Qaeda, reverse the Taliban insurgency and allow American forces home as soon as possible. The review indicated that plans to start a limited withdrawal of some US forces from July 2011 were still on course. International forces are due to hand over control of security to their Afghan counterparts in 2014. But Obama warned that gains made in Taliban strongholds such as Kandahar and Helmand provinces in the south were fragile and reversible. The total international troop death toll last year stood at 521 while for 2008, the number was 295. |
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