Fact Sheet: War in Afghanistan

War in Afghanistan Fact Sheet

— President Obama has pledged to deploy 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan to reinforce security ahead of presidential elections there in August.

– Under President Obama’s new strategy, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will double this year to about 68,000. In February, there were 39,000 troops there, according to the Los Angeles Times and the number now stands at around 54,000.

– The United States leads a coalition of troops from more than 40 countries in Afghanistan. There are about 35,000 non-U.S. soldiers in the country, led by Britain’s 9,885, according to Bloomberg News.

– A total of 17,000 new U.S. troops should be on the ground by mid-July in southern and western Afghanistan to fight the growing insurgency there, the U.S. military said Sunday. An additional 4,000 troops will arrive by August to train Afghan security forces.

– Col. Greg Julian, spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said the new U.S. forces will be concentrated in Helmand and Farah, and about 7,000 troops will be deployed to the southern Kandahar province.

– The south and east of the country have seen rampant violence for many years, but the frequency of attacks has increased in the west, and even in the north, which was long thought to be a peaceful enclave.

– The Afghan National Army has also expanded its forces to 90,000 troops and plans to add another 5,000 before the elections.

– The U.S. military is predicting a 50 percent spike in improvised explosive device, or IED, attacks in Afghanistan this year.

– As of June 1, at least 618 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department.

– As of June 2, 64 U.S. forces had been killed in Afghanistan in 2009, according to an Associated Press count based on military figures. That is nearly double the 36 U.S. troops killed during the first five months of 2008.

– Last year was the deadliest year for American forces in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

– According to the United Nations, there were 2,118 Afghan civilian casualties in 2008. Of those, 55 percent were killed by insurgents and 39 percent were killed by American-led forces.

– Large swaths of rural Pashtun areas in southern Afghanistan are now considered to be under Taliban control, National Public Radio reported.

– As of early April, NATO numbers showed that nearly 23,000 International Security Assistance Force troops were concentrated in the southern region of the country, which includes troubled provinces Helmand and Kandahar. About 22,000 NATO troops were in the eastern region, but just close to 3,000 were in the west, which includes Farah province.