WASHINGTON — Insurgent activity is increasing sharply in Afghanistan and has spread into once stable areas, with attacks up almost 40% in the eastern provinces alone, according to new American military data that have prompted alarm among senior Pentagon officials.
Rising attacks against Afghan and NATO troops in the east represent the latest in a series of troubling developments that have led to markedly higher U.S. casualties and have prompted the military's top leadership to order a review of its strategy in Afghanistan, including how to make do with limited numbers of American troops. Any significant troop increase in Afghanistan would be dependent on future force drawdowns in Iraq.
The new data, disclosed by Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser at a Pentagon news conference Tuesday, covered the first five months of the year in an area of Afghanistan that senior Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, have repeatedly cited as a success story. A similar assessment presented by Schloesser to top Pentagon brass in recent weeks about attacks by Islamic extremist groups sent shudders through the department, a senior military officer said.
Schloesser, the recently appointed U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan, said attacks in the region adjacent to largely lawless areas of Pakistan are also becoming increasingly sophisticated, and blamed them for a growing number of casualties. So far this year, 50 Americans have been killed in combat in Afghanistan, compared with 28 killed through the end of June last year.
In Iraq, the trend is just the reverse. So far this year, the U.S. has suffered 207 military deaths in Iraq, compared with 576 through the end of June last year, according to the website icasualties.org.
"Folks at all levels are really taking a hard look at those statistics and saying, 'What are they telling us?' " said the senior military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly on Afghanistan strategy. "And, more importantly, what action is appropriate to take?"
The troubling numbers, including two new NATO troop deaths Tuesday, come after a period of increasing distress on the part of military officials about the deterioration of security in Afghanistan, where the Taliban regime, which had harbored Al Qaeda, was ousted by U.S.-led forces in late 2001. Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has spent time attempting to refocus the Pentagon's and Capitol Hill's attention on the Afghanistan war.
