July 1, 2008 – June was the second month in a row during which the U.S. and allied troop deaths in the Afghan war were more numerous than those in Iraq, CNN reported.
Last moth, at least 46 foreign troops were killed in the Afghanistan war while 31 troops died in Iraq. In May, the military lost 23 foreign troops in Afghanistan and 21 on the Iraqi battleground.
According to a Pentagon report issued last week, in many of Afghanistan’s areas the security is “fragile” and the Taliban insurgents have regrouped into a “resilient insurgency” after the group was overthrown from power in 2001.
The Pentagon report also showed that June was the deadliest month for foreign troops in Afghanistan since the U.S. military invaded the Middle Easter country in 2001.
In June, 28 Americans, 13 Britons, two Canadians, one Pole, one Romanian, and one Hungarian were killed in the Afghanistan war. However, not all the victims died in combat. For example, the latest deaths were three U.S. troops who died in a vehicle rollover while on patrol in Kandahar province.
“At what point do U.S. combat forces, and in particular the Marine Corps, shift from what is a dramatically improved security situation in Iraq to one that needs to be dramatically improved in Afghanistan?” said Gen. Robert Magnus, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps.
On the other side, violence has dropped in Iraq. The main reasons which caused the drop were the “surge” military offensive, the country’s military operations against militants, the increasing number of the Awakening Councils which are against al Qaeda in Iraq, among Sunni Arabs and the ending of aggression by mainstream members of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army.
