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Few Deaths Reflect Technology, Strategy
Friday, March 1, 2002
By Juan Tamayo
Knight Ridder Tribune

More Western journalists -- a total of four -- than soldiers have died from hostile action in Afghanistan.

In the first five and a half months of America's war on terrorism, one U.S soldier died in combat and one CIA agent was killed in an Afghan prison uprising, while 26 American troops were killed in accidents and three others by "friendly fire."

The surprisingly low number of U.S. combat deaths so far reflects America's technological might, the Pentagon's determination to keep American casualties to a minimum and the Taliban's military weakness, according to military analysts. The higher number of accidental deaths indicates the risks inherent in virtually any military operation, they said.

Twenty-one of the accidental deaths came in aircraft crashes. An airplane and two helicopters went down in Pakistan, and a helicopter crashed in the Philippines during training with Filipino troops who are fighting Abu Sayyaf Muslim separatist guerrillas, who are linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network.

Two soldiers died in heavy-equipment mishaps, one sailor fell overboard, another was killed in a shipboard accident and an Army private died from an accidental gunshot in Uzbekistan.

Whatever the cause, U.S. military casualties so far are minuscule compared with the number of deaths of Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers and their al-Qaida allies. That figure is officially uncounted but is estimated to run in the thousands.
(More: The Tallahassee Democrat News Source)
2002 © Knight Ridder Tribune.

Dan