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US stops giving militant death tolls in Afghanistan
The US military in Afghanistan has stopped releasing figures showing how many militants have been killed in fighting with US-led forces, officials said Friday.
"Indicating the number of insurgents killed has little relevance to impacting the lives of Afghans," Rear Admiral Gregory Smith said in an email to AFP.
"In fact, if that were the only purpose and metric, you would likely only extend the time it takes to bring about an end to the insurgency."
Smith sent an order last month to NATO and US forces blocking the military from releasing details on militant death tolls and providing estimates instead.
"The goal of security operations in an insurgency is to separate the people from the insurgents. Without access to the people, the insurgents lose their main center of gravity," he said.
Smith, who is revamping communications for the US military and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, stressed US-led military operations were not aimed at killing insurgents.