Afghan War Casualty Report: August 2021

At least 115 Afghan security forces and 58 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in the first five days of August.

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Afghan security personnel assessing the damage in Kabul on Aug. 4 after a Taliban attack on the home of the acting defense minister.Credit...Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Fatima Faizi for THE NEW YORK TIMES 

Aug. 5, 2021

The following report is updated on Thursdays and compiles all significant security incidents confirmed by New York Times reporters throughout Afghanistan for the month. It is necessarily incomplete as many local officials refuse to confirm casualty information. The report includes government claims of insurgent casualty figures, but in most cases these cannot be independently verified by The Times. Similarly, the reports do not include Taliban claims for their attacks on the government unless they can be verified. Both sides routinely inflate casualty totals for their opponents.

Analysis in previous reports refers to “pro-government forces” in order to include casualties for U.S. and coalition forces. Since the U.S. withdrawal began, The Times stopped using this phrasing. It will continue to identify militias aligned with the security forces as “pro-government” to differentiate them from independent militias operating in Afghanistan.

Aug. 1-5, 2021

At least 115 Afghan security forces and 58 civilians were killed in the first five days of August. In a serious escalation of their campaign, the Taliban have laid siege in recent weeks to several provincial capitals after sweeping through much of the country’s rural areas. The insurgents now control more than half of the country’s 400-odd districts, according to some assessments.

The deadliest incident so far in August occurred in Nimruz Province, where the Taliban attacked Kang district, killing 30 security forces and overrunning the district. The police chief and six other security forces surrendered to the Taliban, but the group shot them to death. In Helmand Province, 20 civilians were killed and 189 others were wounded in crossfire between the Taliban and the Afghan security forces in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, over the last several days. The victims were transferred to Boost Hospital from around the city.