As of October 10, the U.S. and its NATO allies have lost 2,144 troops, almost 1,100 since last year. So far this year 574 foreign troops have been killed, 27 percent of the total in the over nine-year-long war, compared to 55 in Iraq, a more than ten-to-one ratio. And whereas all those killed in Iraq this year were American servicemen, almost 35 per cent of all occupation forces slain in Afghanistan were non-American. 4,475 of 4,743 foreign troops killed in Iraq since 2003 - 94.3 percent - were from the U.S. while 820 of the 2,144 killed in Afghanistan since 2001 - 38.3 percent - were not.
Nations that have not been engaged in a war since World War Two and in some instances longer or never at all are now providing NATO troops for Afghanistan: Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, the Czech Republic/Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia, Austria and Mongolia. (Many of the above, especially new NATO members, also supplied troops for deployment to Iraq after 2003, which have since been withdrawn and redeployed to Afghanistan.)
Even Switzerland, a NATO Partnership for Peace member, assigned a nominal contingent from 2004-2008, withdrawing it because "The peacekeeping support mission in South Afghanistan has gradually turned into an operation to combat insurgents," according to a Swiss source. [3]
Other nations have troops in Afghanistan that had not sent military forces to a foreign combat zone since the Korean War - Belgium, Canada, Greece and Turkey - and the Vietnam War: Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. [4]
In the last week of September NATO helicopter gunships launched four deadly raids into Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas and on September 30 an attack by two NATO helicopters killed three Pakistani soldiers in the Kurram Agency there.
This month the Czech Republic announced that it was increasing its NATO contingent by 30 percent, from 530 to 730 troops, and was redeploying its special forces to Afghanistan. Many of the troops are being transferred from NATO's Kosovo Force to its International Security Assistance Force, as with those of other NATO members and much as occurred from December of 2008 onward when all Eastern European nations' troops were reassigned from Iraq to Afghanistan.
Meeting with Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg in Washington on October 6, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "said she had been happy at the Czech step." [5]
The day before, Clinton met with Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov and the two "discussed the situation in Afghanistan," [6] where Bulgaria announced this summer it was deploying a "700-strong combat unit to boost its troops...as of 2013 at the latest," [7] notwithstanding talks of a drawdown of foreign troops next July.
At a joint press conference with Georgian Prime Minister Nika Gilauri in Washington before the second meeting of the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership Commission within the framework of the U.S.-Georgia Charter on Strategic Cooperation on October 6, Clinton applauded the South Caucasus nation for increasing its troop strength in Afghanistan to almost 1,000, condoled it on the recent loss of four soldiers there, supported its NATO aspirations and in effect demanded Russia remove its troops from Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The governments of the latter two nations reacted to Clinton's characterization of them as "occupied Georgian territories," and Abkhazia "challenged Mrs Clinton to label countries like Iraq and Afghanistan American-occupied territories." [8]
A U.S. armed forces publication recently disclosed that U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) is training joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs) from fellow NATO nations at an American Air Force school in Germany to order bombing runs in Afghanistan. "[T]he Air Force has ramped up efforts to train more [controllers] from allied nations, many of whom could deploy to Afghanistan to call in NATO airstrikes....USAFE Commander Gen. Roger Brady has directed the Europe-based school to double its training capacity, from 72 to 144 graduates a year....At least 50 percent of those students are expected to come from countries other than the United States." [9] In a five-week initial qualification class this month, U.S. Air Force personnel were joined by counterparts from Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Romania and Slovenia, all but two of whom are new NATO members inducted since 1999.
Canada, which has more than once announced plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan without doing so, reactivated the 1st Canadian Division Headquarters in Kingston, Ontario on October 8 under the command of Major-General David Fraser, who commanded NATO troops in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan in 2006. Fraser said "putting the organization back in place means that the Forces will be more nimble and can respond to future missions - be it combat such as Afghanistan or humanitarian assistance in Haiti - faster and smoother." He added that the multi-service (army, air force and navy) rapid deployment headquarters "incorporates a lot of what we learned in Afghanistan." [10]
On October 6 an Afghan soldier fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an outpost manned by French troops in the northeastern province of Kapisa.
Three NATO soldiers were killed in attacks in southern and eastern Afghanistan and NATO lost a drone in Paktika province near the Pakistani border on October 7. The next day three more ISAF soldiers were killed in the south of the country while NATO forces killed what were described as six pro-government militiamen in the southeastern province of Khost. "Local villagers took the bodies to the governor's office in the provincial capital, also called Khost, to protest the killing," an Afghan police official reported. [11]
Also on October 7, a German soldier was killed and six others wounded - two seriously, one critically - in northern Afghanistan in a suicide bomb attack, bringing Germany's death toll to 44. A German news agency reported that "The Germans came under mortar and rifle fire after the detonation and the skirmish apparently lasted for several hours." [12] The same source stated that there are 5,350 German soldiers now stationed in the north, up from the 4,500 maximum allowed for by the Bundestag until this February. The number is substantially higher than any previous amount of German troops stationed abroad - and moreover for war - since World War Two.
On October 9 four Italian soldiers were killed and another injured in an attack in western Afghanistan, bringing Italy's death count to 34. "The victims were killed when a bomb exploded near their armoured car, part of a column of 70 Italian military vehicles." [13]
On the same day a member of Australia's Special Operations Task Group was wounded in a roadside bomb attack. Australia is the largest NATO partnership nation (one of four Contact Countries along with Japan, New Zealand and South Korea) contributor to the war, with 1,550 troops in theater. According to the country's Ministry of Defence, 21 Australian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan and 150 wounded, 50 of the latter this year.
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