Sara Simpson
3/22/09
11:40 pm
On Saturday, March 21, six people were killed in Afghanistan when a car bomb went off at a police check point. According to NATO, the bomb went off in the northeastern region near Jalalabad City. The checkpoint was only temporary, and it was being controlled by the Afghan National Police. NATO reported that, in addition to the five civilians and one ANP member killed, five other civilians were injured. This report comes after even more deaths that occurred earlier in this week. On Friday, a soldier from NATO's Internationl Security Assistance Force was killed in southern Afghanistan. Also, in southern Afghanistan, four Canadian soldiers were killed, and several others were wounded. These deaths and injuries occurred in the same area, but they were separate attacks. The region west of Kandahar (were the attacks occurred) has been an area prone to conflict. These recent attacks bring Canada's death toll to 116.
These recent attacks in Afghanistan bring to light that we are still fighting a war in that country. A lot of the media coverage tends to bring our focus to Iraq, and we forget that we still have many troops in Afghanistan as well. After researching some other attack sites, it seems the region mentioned above, in addition to several others, is one of the areas most prone to conflict in Afghanistan. Most of the casualties are sustained by roadside bombs. Although the United States has sustain the most casualties, we are not the only country to have lost soldiers in battle. Some other countries that have lost soldiers include Great Britain, Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, Australia, and Hungary. It is very overwhelming to see the number of deaths that have occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq since this war began. Countries from every corner of the world have lost loved ones in combat. While I was researching the numbers, I found a page set up by CNN that list the name, date of death, and description of what happened to soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan. It is one thing to hear about the deaths on the news, but to see page after page of names is very overpowering. It is really hard for me to look at things like that.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/03/21/afghanistan.fighting/index.html
2 comments:
I was really shocked when I read this article too. I knew that there are a lot of soldiers in Afganistan, however I did not know that they are still so much fighting. Last week a met an American who has been staying in Afganistan for couples of months, and he told me that he was only playing table tennis and watching movies down there. I guess it depends where you staying.
Our perception on Afghanistan, as a nation, is interesting these days. Even will new discussion about what to do, the Afghanistan war has taken a back seat to the current Iraq occupation. Clearly, not much rebuilding of infrastructure or national security has occurred. I will be interested to see when major changes in US policies towards Afghanistan happen.
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