Wednesday, October 14, 2009

British and Canadian death rate double during summer surge

Most of the deaths are due to IEDs. It's been reported that the taliban are being supplied with explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) from the Iranians.

From Independent

As the threat from the resurgent Taliban has multiplied recently, the number of confrontations with opposition forces has soared more than twenty-fold from the 10 experienced every month only three years ago.

New details of the number of "contact events" undergone by British forces in Helmand province emerged as a new study, compiled from official Ministry of Defence figures, revealed that British forces are suffering death rates as bad as those endured by the Soviets, who lost a war of attrition against Afghan insurgents in the country during the 1980s.[...]

The analysis shows that the death rate among UK and Canadian forces during the early summer surge doubled to around 16.2 per thousand personnel in theatre operations for a year, compared to the previous three months. The figure was almost twice the death rate sustained by the Americans during the same period.

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