Daily Times

WASHINGTON: The US “war on terrorism” has killed about half a million people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan during its 17-years, that was launched after the 9/11 attack in 2001, according to a study released a day earlier.

The report by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs shows that US-led “war on terrorism” is showing a 22 percent increase in deaths in the past two years.

The report put the death toll at between 480,000 and 507,000 people, but said the actual number is likely higher.

The death toll includes US and allied troops, civilians, local military and police forces, as well as militants, who have died from war violence.

The report said the number of indirect deaths was several times larger than deaths caused by direct war violence, bringing the total death count to well over 1 million people.

It says, fatalities in Afghanistan, as of October 2018, stood at about 147,000 people, including Afghan security forces, civilians and opposition fighters. The figure also included the deaths of 6,334 American soldiers and contractors and 1,100 allied troops.

The report said that war-related violence had killed 65,000 people in Pakistan, including 90 American contractors, nearly 9,000 local security personnel and more than 23,000 civilians. The rest of the casualties were trouble makers.

The rest of the deaths, between 268,000 and 295,000, occurred in Iraq, where the US-led military intervention began in 2003.

The casualties in Pakistan have dropped by more than 80 percent in the past few years, intensified hostilities in Afghanistan continue to inflict record levels of casualties on civilians and pro-government forces.

It also lamented that the US wars have displaced millions of people in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.