US death toll reaches 1,000 in Afghanistan war

THE American military death toll in Afghanistan reached 1,000 at a time when US President Barack Obama’s strategy to turn back the Taliban is facing its greatest test — an ambitious campaign to win over a disgruntled population in the insurgents’ southern heartland.

More casualties are expected when the campaign kicks into high gear this summer.

The results may determine the outcome of a nearly nine-year conflict that became “Obama’s war” after he decided to shift the fight againstIslamist militancy from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Afghan insurgents find sanctuary.

The grim milestone was reached in a roadside bombing just before the Memorial Day weekend, when America honours the dead in all its wars.

The NATO statement did not identify the victim or give the nationality of the service member killed yesterday in southern Afghanistan. US spokesman Colonel Wayne Shanks said the trooper was American — the 32nd US war death this month.

For many of the US service members in Afghanistan, the 1,000-mark passed without fanfare.

Capt Nick Ziemba of Wilbraham, Massachusetts, serving with the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment in southern Afghanistan, said 1,000 was an arbitrary number and would have no impact on troop morale or operations.

“We’re going to continue to work,” he said.

The 1,000th death comes midway between the president’s decision last December to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan and a gut check on the war’s progress that he has promised by the end of the year.