At least 20,040 American soldiers had been wounded in the 13-year-old Afghanistan war theater as of November 10, according to a Pentagon tally.
As the U.S. military winds down its presence and combat role in Afghanistan, the number of American fatalities and injuries as a result of the war has decreased dramatically.
Although an Associated Press database of U.S. military casualties in the Afghanistan war shows that there were no troop fatalities in October, the Department of Defense (DoD) tally revealed that 31 service members were wounded that month. Only one soldier has reportedly been wounded so far in November. No fatalities have been reported this month.
Nearly 90 percent (17,339) of the wounded troops received their injuries after Obama was inaugurated for his first term on January 20, 2009.
The number of troops wounded in action has increased more than seven fold in the nearly six years that Obama has been president — from 2,701 when he took office in 2009 to 20,040 now.
DoD’s tally is not broken up by days, so Breitbart News began thecount of injured soldiers under Obama’s watch from the beginning ofFebruary 2009, eleven days after he was inaugurated for his first term.
The Afghanistan war theater, officially known as Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), covers military operations in Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
However, Afghanistan has been the nucleus of practically all military activity during the ongoing operation, which began on October 7, 2001.
According to the Pentagon, explosions involving land mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are the source of the most common wounds. Those injuries often lead to amputations.
In February 2014, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported that as of the end of 2013, a total of 762 “major limb” amputations had been linked to the Afghanistan war.
Those amputations include “the loss of one or more limbs, the loss of one or more partial limbs, or the loss of one or more full or partial hand or foot.”
About nine out of every 10 major limb amputations took place between 2009 and the end of 2013 with the number peaking at 248 in 2011.
Obama increased the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan immediately upon taking office in 2009.
U.S.-led combat operations are scheduled to officially end next month. A residual force of about 10,000 is expected to remain in the country after 2014. By the end of 2015, that force will be cut in half.
All forces are scheduled to be out of Afghanistan by 2017, except for a small contingency force responsible for U.S. embassy security.
Members of the Afghanistan National Security Force (ANSF) have taken the lead in fighting the Taliban.
The ANSF has the “capability to protect themselves. They are the strongest institution in Afghanistan,” U.S. Gen. John Campbell, the top commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told NPR’s “Morning Edition” host Steve Inskeep in an interview aired on Veterans Day.
According to the AP database, 2,348 U.S. soldiers have been killed while supporting Operation Enduring Freedom, including 2,207 (94 percent) in Afghanistan alone.
Of the 2,207 U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan, at least 1,649 (75 percent) have occurred under Obama’s watch.
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