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September 11th,
2009 - Eight Years on, 9/11 Reaps Heavy Toll |
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Eight Years
on, 9/11 Reaps Heavy Toll By Olivia Hampton Agence France Presse September 11, 2009 Washington - Eight years
after Al-Qaeda brought carnage to the United States killing nearly 3,000
people, the "war on terror" unleashed after the attacks has claimed
tens of thousands of lives far from US shores. Countless civilians and
security forces of many nationalities have died since September 11, 2001 and
continue to bear the burden of a conflict that has spread beyond the initial
focal points of Iraq and Afghanistan. Up to 101,539 civilians have
been killed in Iraq since former president George W. Bush ordered the 2003
US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, according to figures compiled by the
Iraq Body Count, an independent monitor. The Bush administration
wrongly accused Saddam of being in cahoots with Al-Qaeda and stockpiling
weapons of mass destruction. The ensuing chaos as US-led
troops moved in stoked the fires of sectarian violence, and fueled the rise
of a new group, Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Despite moves by Bush, and
his successor, President Barack Obama, to shore up the new Iraqi leadership, a
spate of attacks in August saw violent deaths hit a 13-month high at 456,
including 393 civilians, official figures showed. According to another
monitoring group, icasualties.org, a total of 4,343 US troops have died in
Iraq since 2003, along with 179 British soldiers and 139 of other
nationalities. Obama has now shifted the
focus of the war from Iraq to Afghanistan, and has pledged to withdraw all
combat troops from Iraq by 2010, with a complete military withdrawal by 2011. But the weeks leading up to
the June 30 withdrawal of American forces from Iraq's cities, towns and
villages also saw a spike in violence, claiming 437 lives that month. Iraqi Foreign Minister
Hoshyar Zebari has warned of more deadly attacks because security is
deteriorating due to collusion between the security forces and insurgents. "Enough of these
over-optimistic remarks about security. There has been a deterioration in the
security situation, this is a fact and the coming (violence) will be
bigger," he said earlier this month. In Afghanistan, where US
troops ousted Taliban Islamic leaders in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks,
the resurgent militants are now inflicting heavy casualties on US and
NATO-led troops. There is no proper tally of
civilian deaths in Afghanistan, but United Nations figures showed some 2,118
civilians were killed last year - the highest since the Taliban were ousted
in November 2001. Another 1,523 were killed in 2007. A total of 1,378 US and NATO
troops have died in Afghanistan, the bulk of them American forces, according
to icasualties.org. Britain has the second-largest number of troops killed,
with 213. And the conflict has also
inflicted its heaviest toll on Canadian forces in more than five decades with
the loss of 129 troops. August was the deadliest
month for foreign troops in Afghanistan, with 77 servicemembers - 51 of them
US troops - killed. At least 333 international
military forces have been killed so far this year, making it the most lethal
since the start of the war. The escalating violence has
also colored US public opinion, with a majority of Americans now opposed to
the war, according to recent polls. An ICM Research survey released Thursday
found the same is true among Britons. Copyright © 2009 AFP. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hJfK-36JKhs186OBsTmNjhHqGIQw |