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US-Led Coalition Forces Are Bombing Terrorists In Afghanistan Like Never Before

REUTERS/Bob Strong

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Ryan Pickrell China/Asia Pacific Reporter
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The U.S.-led coalition forces are apparently bombing Afghanistan with greater intensity, according to relevant Pentagon data.

Coalition planes dropped 1,186 bombs on terrorist targets in Afghanistan in the first quarter of 2018. That figure is higher than any for the same period in any of the last 15 years, Voice of America reports, citing Department of Defense data. The previous record of 1,083 was set in 2011, during the height of the military conflict in Afghanistan.

These figures reportedly do not include Afghan Air Force bombing activities, which are said to involve between four and 12 airstrikes a day.

Since President Donald Trump announced his new military strategy in August last year, the U.S.-led coalition bombing campaign has become much more intense, and this trend is expected to continue. The primary targets include the Islamic State and the Taliban, specifically terrorist training camps and narcotics facilities.

The U.S. Air Force planes dropped more munitions in Afghanistan in March that it did in Iraq and Syria for the first time since the U.S. began waging war against ISIS in 2014, Stars and Stripes reports, citing new Air Force data. American planes dropped a total of 339 bombs in Afghanistan, far eclipsing the 294 bombs dropped in Iraq and Syria in March.

The figure for bombs dropped in Afghanistan last month was reportedly the highest in five years.

While the U.S. and its various international partners have liberated much of the territory controlled by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. remains locked in a stalemate in Afghanistan, where Taliban militants still control almost half of the war-torn country.

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