US war on terror cost nearly half a million lives, report says
In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, about half a million people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan were killed by the U.S. war on terrorism over the past 17 years, according to a recent study
APPROXIMATELY half a million people have died violently in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan due to the U.S. “war on terror” that was launched following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, according to a study released Thursday.
The report by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs put the death toll at between 480,000 and 507,000 people, but said the actual number is likely higher. The new toll “is a more than 110,000 increase over the last count, issued just two years ago in August 2016,” Brown said in a statement, as reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP). “Though the war on terror is often overlooked by the American public, press and lawmakers, the increased body count signals that, far from diminishing, this war remains intense.” The death toll includes insurgents, local police and security forces, civilians and U.S. and allied troops.
The report’s author, Neta Crawford, said many of those reported by U.S. and local forces as militants may actually have been civilians. “We may never know the total direct death toll in these wars,” Crawford wrote. “For example, tens of thousands of civilians may have died in retaking Mosul and other cities from [Daesh] but their bodies have likely not been recovered.”
The report states that between 182,272 and 204,575 civilians have been killed in Iraq, 38,480 in Afghanistan, and 23,372 in Pakistan. Nearly 7,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The tally does not include all people who have died indirectly as a result of war, including through a loss of infrastructure or disease. Some U.S. officials have questioned the benefit of sending more troops to Afghanistan because any politically palatable number would not be enough to turn the tide, much less create stability and security.
In August 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled a more hawkish military approach to Afghanistan, including a surge in air strikes to force the Taliban to the negotiating table. There are about 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan on a mission to train and assist Afghan government forces in taking the fight to the Taliban, which controls or contests close to half the districts in the country.
Violence is rising, claiming the lives of hundreds of civilians every month. There have been seven U.S. combat deaths so far this year.
Efforts to find a peaceful end to Afghanistan’s protracted war have accelerated since Washington appointed Afghan-American Zalmay Khalilzad as envoy to find a peaceful end to America’s longest war, which has already cost the U.S. more than $900 billion. Even as peace moves have picked up, Taliban insurgents have increased pressure across Afghanistan, where they now hold more territory than at any time since the U.S.led campaign of 2001 that ousted them from power. At the same time, Afghan forces have been suffering their highestever casualty levels, according to a report last week from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan, a U.S. Congressional watchdog.