Here's How Many People Have Died In The Wars In Afghanistan And Iraq

Of the 76 countries in which the U.S. is currently fighting terrorism, at least three have been incredibly deadly: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Brown University’s Costs of War Project recently released a report detailing just how deadly they’ve been. It counts how many people have been killed by the “United States’ post-9/11 wars” in these three countries.

The report accounts for deaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan between October 2001 and October 2018, and in Iraq between March 2003 and October 2018.

In October 2001, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to defeat the al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but little progress has been made after more than 17 years of war. In March 2003, the US invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein’s regime under the pretense that the regime had weapons of mass destruction, most notably nuclear weapons. The U.S. pulled out in 2011, paving the way for the rise of ISIS and the re-deployment of US troops.

Pakistan is a little murkier. Since 9/11, the U.S. has conducted hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan and used the country as a military staging area — but Islamabad has been accused of harboring terrorists as well.

The Costs of War report (which compiled data from governments, NGOs, media, and more) notes that the actual number of deaths is low because of the limits documenting death in conflict zones.



https://taskandpurpose.com/afghanistan-iraq-death-toll/