BREAKING NEWS: U.S. AFGHAN DEATH TOLL REACHES 1,000

U.S. Afghan toll hits 1,000, says website

(Retuers)23 February 2010, 10:51 PM
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The number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan has reached 1,000, an independent website said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile deadly bombings continued in the south and east highlighting the struggle to stabilize the country.

The Pentagon disputed the figure, saying 916 had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan combined since late 2001 when the Taliban fell.

“It’s significantly less than 1,000 in Afghanistan,” said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman when asked to comment on the latest death toll provided by the website, which tracks casualties.
Civilian and military casualties hit records last year as violence reached its worst levels since the Taliban were ousted, with foreign forces launching two big offensives in the past eight months to stem a growing insurgency.

The website said 54 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year, raising the total to 1,000 since the Taliban’s fall. This compares with eight this year in Iraq, where 4,378 have been killed since 2003.

Afghanistan is high on U.S. President Barack Obama’s foreign policy agenda and more American casualties or a military campaign that fails to bring stability to the country in an increasingly unpopular war could harm his presidency.

Also on Tuesday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office said he had signed into law changes that remove foreign observers from the electoral watchdog tasked with reviewing voting fraud.

That could put Karzai in conflict with Western donors who have said they will not fund Sept. 18 parliamentary elections without electoral reforms, following a 2009 presidential poll beset by massive fraud.

“The Afghan government for long has wanted to ‘Afghanize’ the electoral process and 10 days ago, the cabinet ratified the amendment and the president endorsed it,” Karzai spokesman Siamak Herawi said.

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