Battling more efficient, resilient resistance, US Iraq veterans are complaining about a tougher Afghanistan mission. “They are two totally different worlds,” Marine Sergeant Jacob Tambunga, who has been recently deployed in the restive southern Afghan province of Helmand, told The New York Times on July 26. “In Iraq, they’d hit you and run,” said Tambunga, a squad leader in Company C, First Battalion, Fifth Marines who fought the deadliest Iraqi resistance. “But these guys [in Afghanistan] stick around and maneuver on you.”
A British soldier was killed when a bomb exploded on July 25 in Helmand, the 20th British serviceman to die in Afghanistan this month. Thousands of British and US troops are pressing offensives in Helmand, ahead of the August presidential polls. In his first days in Helmand, Tambunga fought through three ambushes, each lasting as long as the most sustained fight he saw in Iraq. Western military casualties have hit record levels in Afghanistan, with at least 66 NATO troops killed this month. More than 30 US soldiers were killed just in the first three weeks of July, the deadliest month for international forces since the 2001 invasion. An independent website, which tracks military losses, says 223 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year. Over 1,270 from the foreign soldiers were killed and thousands others injured in the fighting with Taliban since 2001.