“Although it was the longest military conflict in U.S. history, Afghanistan frequently was a forgotten war, overshadowed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent rise of the Islamic State extremist group.
In all, 2,461 U.S. troops were killed, including 13 in the past week, in a U.S. campaign that began Oct. 7, 2001, as an effort to topple the Taliban for harboring al Qaeda. The toll was far greater for Afghans: As many as 69,000 troops and police, and an estimated 47,000 civilians, according to researchers from Brown University’s Costs of War project.”
– Nancy A. Youssef and Gordon Lubold, “Last U.S. Troops Leave Afghanistan After Nearly 20 Years,” wsj.com, August 30, 2021