US Bombing Campaign in Afghanistan Intensifies, Hitting New High

The U.S. military dropped 555 bombs in Afghanistan against Taliban and Islamic State targets in August, the highest number in a single month since 2012. The U.S. has conducted about 2,400 airstrikes since the beginning of the year in support of Afghan partners battling the Taliban and IS terrorists, said U.S. Navy Captain Bill Salvin, spokesman for NATO’s Resolute Support mission in the country. The record increase in U.S. airstrikes comes as President Donald Trump last month unveiled his long-awaited new strategy for the 16-year-old Afghan war, the United States’ longest-running foreign military engagement. The Trump plan requires a modest troop surge and increased foreign airpower for Afghan forces so they could step up operations against the Taliban and IS loyalists, prompting concerns that intensified hostilities may cause more civilian casualties. The military “uplift” that President Trump announced, including increased airpower, has not had a significant direct impact as yet because most of it is in the process of coming into the (war) theater, said Salvin. Two American airstrikes in the last week of August killed at least 24 civilians and wounded 16 others, almost all of them women and children, according to a United Nations probe. The U.N. has already recorded a 43 percent rise in Afghan civilian casualties from aerial strikes in the first six months of 2017.