Afghanistan and the war that reached deadlock
Since the fall of communism in 1978, Afghanistan has been witnessing a war up to date which makes 37 years, the end of which still remains dark. The war that the second, and even third generation of the warriors keeps it up, as the bloodshed of the first generation is not enough for the other generations. In this phenomenon every generation wants to have its own experience, and experience their own lost.
Jihad against the Soviet Union and its puppet government in Afghanistan meant 1.5 million lives. Thousands of others were killed in civil war following communism fall. Later then, there were thousands of people killed in the war between Taliban and the United Frontiers, and since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 till now, thousands of others killed and counting.
Statistics of the Taliban killed since 2001
It would be so tough to declare the exact human casualties of this period. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan started on August 7th, 2001, and up to December 2014 it reached exactly 13 years and four months. During these 4865 days, every day the Afghan Security Forces reported killing of many armed Taliban during their military operations and the Foreign Forces, which sometimes it would cross the line of hundreds of lives. The statistics of November reports killing of more than six hundred Taliban during the month.
If only we count the death of the Taliban with full attention and care, and count that at least 10 has been killed every day, the multiplication of thirteen years and 3 months would be 48,650.
It is not all the statistics of the Taliban that are killed, but there were thousands of other Taliban also killed during the beginning of US invasion, which its statistics were not revealed till some days ago, but a few days ago General Abdul Rashid Dostum stated that his soldiers arrested more than 45,000 of the Al-Qaida members in 2001.
Exposing the secret is not only meant arresting people, as they were not only members of Al-Qaida, Dostum Has counted Taliban as Al-Qaida too, it’s obvious that there were never 45,000 members of Al-Qaida in Afghanistan, we can’t even pretend this.
Suppose 2,000 of them were members of Al-Qaida, more than 40,000 of them were Taliban. After 2003, only 3,000 of those Taliban, who were imprisoned by Dostum, were released in the form of small groups, and the rest of them which were approximately 40,000 disappeared in northern Afghanistan. Therefore, we have to add the number of the disappeared ones to the killed Taliban. So, up to date there should be more than 80,000 Taliban killed in Afghanistan, but instead of getting weakened, this group continues the war with even more energy.
Casualties of the Afghan Forces
Present above, are not the only casualties of the war in Afghanistan, we have to include the casualties of the Afghan Security forces including that of ANA, ANP, ALP and NDS to the statistics. According to a report of VOA, which was published on 6th November 2014, there were more than 4,634 Afghan Forces killed in last one month, in various battles and different types of incidents around the country. According to Lt. General Joseph Anderson, who is one of the high-ranking officials of the U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, the mentioned number of loss is not tolerable for the Afghan Security Forces.
If we take an average of 1000 men loss for Afghan security forces each year, it makes up 13000, Taliban causalities included makes up 90,000.
Civilian Casualties
It’s difficult to find proper statistics in this. The discussion is not about which party killed more civilians, rather it’s more about how many civilians had to give their lives for the war.
According to the reports, civilian casualties statistics provided by all sides, the Taliban, Afghan Security Forces and their foreign allies, it makes it tougher to find out the correct statistics, and most of the time the civilian casualties in rural areas are not reported by media; but both the Afghan Government and the International Organizations confirm that the civilian casualties in Afghanistan are much more than of the militants.
By being conservative, and suppose the same number of casualities for civilians like Taliban’s, we would have a total of 170,000 live loss.
There is no doubt that in such a war, it’s not only those have lost lives have lost something it rather affects others too. Injured and disables in Afghanistan are not only themselves facing the wall but their families also have to suffer a death countdown.
While the War Reach Deadlock
The history of Afghanistan shows that the presence of foreign forces has always been a motive for war. Therefore, the extension foreign forces presence could only mean a continuous war, especially in rural areas of the country, which has been ignited after signing BSA.
On the other hand, it is crystal clear that the most powerful forces of their time like: British, Russian, and finally the Americans and NATO were not able to bring peace to the country through war; so reaching the goal by the Afghan Security Forces is also difficult, because no side in this war, has the chance of winning it, and no side will face complete loss of the war, which itself mean deadlock of the war between both the parties, which will remain so and will be obstacle for sustainable development of the country.
Therefore it must be a priority for unity government to reach a peace deal with armed forces opposing it, otherwise the ongoing war could be a dilemma for tens of more year and by its continuation (as experienced in other countries) will bring even more fundamentalist and cruel groups to the ground.
The End