AMERICAN TERRORISM: 100,000 killed in Afghanistan war since 2001: Study

A new study shows that almost 100,000 people have been killed and a same number of others wounded in Afghanistan since 2001, when the country saw the onset of a military invasion led by the US.

The study, conducted by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies in the US and titled Costs of War, compild war-related casualty figures in Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2001 to 2014, when US-led combat troops left Afghanistan.

According to Neta Crawford, the author of the study, some 149,000 people were killed and 162,000 others seriously wounded in th two countries during the aforementioned period.

The figures, which include civilians, militants, foreign forces and aid workers, are based on statistics from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and other sources.

Most civilian deaths happened after 2007, with nearly 18,000 deaths recorded between 2009 and 2014.

Crawford said a continuing rise in the number of civilian casualties shows that the war has not ended in Afghanistan despite the withdrawal of the US-led international combat forces from the country.

According to the UN, civilian casualties grew 16 percent in the first four months of 2015, with 974 people dead and 1,963 others wounded.

The US and some of its allied invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under the pretext that the then Taliban regime was harboring Osama bin Laden, the now-slain leader of the terrorist al-Qaeda group. The terrorist outfit was accused of being behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US. American special forces, however, later killed bin Laden inside Pakistan.

While the US-led combat mission in Afghanistan ended on December 31, 2014, roughly 13,000 foreign troops, mainly from the US, remain in the Asian country in what is said to be a support mission.