NATO troops in Afghanistan appears to go all out on al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters for the British troops have not only killed 600 Taliban militants since April, but successfully pushed the Islamic insurgents away from inhabited areas of Helmand province in the southern part of the nation.
The escalating intensity, on part of the foreign troops, of the war in Afghanistan can well be gauged by the fact that in the last two months British troops in Afghanistan have fired almost as many rounds as they shot in the twelve months of previous year.
In this short but unstable period the 1st Bn Royal Anglians battlegroup has fired almost 400,000 rounds of small arms ammunition in the volatile areas of Afghanistan, which possibly will well surpass the 450,000 bullets that the group fired over six months of intense fighting last year.
The interesting fact about the battlegroup is that the Soldiers who are fighting on the forefront are mostly teenagers experiencing live warfare for the first time in their lives.
NATO forces may have succeeded in killing some of the most wanted Islamic militants and pushing others out from their stronghold areas, but civil casualties during the intense fighting between troops and militants have stained or questioned the self-defined achievements of foreign troops.
Various human rights groups and civil organizations time and again have accused the foreign forces for killing civilians. There have been several reports of civilian casualties ever since the military campaign in Afghanistan began on Oct 7, 2001, in response to the September 11 attacks on the United States.
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