U.S. Afghan deaths drop
One serviceman died in November, a dramatic decline from previous months.
KABUL, Afghanistan - One American serviceman died in Afghanistan last month, a dramatic drop from earlier months that the U.S. military attributed to a campaign against insurgent leaders, operations by Afghan and Pakistani forces, and the onset of winter.
Twice this year, monthly U.S. death tolls in Afghanistan surpassed the monthly toll in Iraq, highlighting the differing trends in the two war zones: Security in Iraq has improved while it has deteriorated in Afghanistan.
The Taliban's reach is expanding, even into the capital, Kabul.
U.S. troops suffered an average of 21 deaths in Afghanistan each month this year from May to October - by far the deadliest six-month period in Afghanistan for American forces since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. The Afghan Defense Ministry does not release fatality figures.
Extremists this year have unleashed increasingly powerful roadside bombs and sophisticated ambushes.
The deadlier attacks, combined with a record number of U.S. troops patrolling Afghanistan's vast provinces, have led to more American military deaths there this year than ever before - 148.
The U.S. military death recorded last month came when a suicide bomber rammed his car into a military convoy Nov. 13 as it was passing through a crowded market in eastern Afghanistan. The blast killed Sgt. Jonnie L. Stiles, 38, of the Louisiana Army National Guard.
Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, the spokeswoman at the U.S. base at Bagram, cautioned that one month of data did not make a trend "but may be an indicator."
Still, she noted that operations conducted by U.S. forces in the summer against insurgent areas and bomb-making networks helped lower November's violence.
Also, U.S. forces pressed ahead with what commanders call the Winter Campaign.
"This campaign is designed to create the conditions of lowering enemy capabilities," she said. Pakistani military operations in Bajur also have helped security in Afghanistan, she said.
Afghan insurgents, particularly in mountainous areas, typically scale back their operations during the winter, and that may have contributed to the declining trend, a U.S. military spokesman, Col. Jerry O'Hara, said.
The United States has 150,000 troops in Iraq, but violence there has fallen off dramatically. Over the last six months it has become more dangerous to serve in Afghanistan than in Iraq. About 32,000 Americans are deployed in Afghanistan.
In two months this year, more U.S. soldiers died in Afghanistan than in Iraq: In July, 20 died in Afghanistan and 16 in Iraq. In September, 16 died in Afghanistan, 14 in Iraq. Sixteen U.S. troops died in Iraq last month, eight in combat.
On Monday, a suicide bomber apparently trying to target Afghan police blew himself up in a market in southern Afghanistan, killing eight civilians and two policemen, said Helmand's provincial police chief, Asadullah Sherzad.