In July of 2010, when Gen. Stanley McChrsytal handed over command of the war in Afghanistan to Gen. David Petraeus, air strikes had become a tool of absolute last resort. NATO planes were only making about 10 attack runs a day -- in the middle of Afghanistan's fighting season, and with an influx of tens of thousands of new allied troops colliding with dug-in militants.
In July of 2011, Petraeus passed the baton to Gen. John Allen. But it's a whole new -- and much more ferocious -- air war. Allied jets and bombers are unloading their weapons on more than 20 sorties a day, according to U.S. military statistics, for a total of 652 attack runs.
It's part of a war effort that has grown more aggressive in nearly every way. Special operations forces now launch a dozen "kill/capture" raids a night, and havetaken 3,775 insurgents off the battlefield in the last year. Massive surface-to-surface missiles have been used to clear the Taliban out of Kandahar; tanks have been sent to Helmand province to help crush opponents; civilian homes taken over by insurgents have been leveled without apology.
American officials are quick to point out that a combination of better intelligence and more accurate weapons have allowed the air campaign to be ratcheted up, without a corresponding rise in civilian casualties. The strikes from the sky may have doubled, but innocent deaths caused by those attacks only rose by 14 percent, to 79 people so far this year, according to figures compiled by the United Nations. (And that U.N. number includes those killed by helicopters; the military doesn't include such strikes in its statistics.)
But, after a decade of war, Afghan tolerance for a continued air campaign appears to have grown thin. In the last month, NATO bombs and missiles were accused by Afghan authorities of killing innocents in Nuristan province, Khost province, and in Logar province.
In late May, Afghan president Hamid Karzai announced that he was banning airstrikes on Afghan homes after U.S. munitions killed at least nine civilians during an attack on two family compounds in the Salaam Bazaar area in the Now Zad district. If NATO didn’t heed his call, Karzai said, "then their presence will change from a force that is fighting against terrorism to a force that is fighting against the people of Afghanistan… And in that case, history shows what Afghans do with trespassers and with occupiers."
Since then, NATO forces have launched approximately 1,200 air strikes.
*
Photo: USAF*
