Death toll in Afghanistan still rising.

The number of British soldiers dying in Afghanistan per year is continuing to escalate according to figures released by the Ministry of Defence.

Conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq have raged on since 2001, yet despite the death toll in Iraq plummeting, Afghanistan’s continues to rise.
Whilst the figures released by the MOD only go up to July, 2009 is already the bloodiest of the war so far.

Afghanistan was invaded in 2001 as a response to 9/11 in a relatively bloodless campaign until 2006. A staggering 85 soldiers killed there this year, almost half of the 222 dead as a result of the whole conflict so far.

This compares unfavourably with the war in Iraq, which began in 2003, with that year its peak of violence. A total of 179 British soldiers have been killed there since, only one of which was this year.

Guardian data store: http://www.guardian.co.uk/data-store
MOD figures: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/sep/17/afghanistan-casualties-dead-wounded-british-data