• THIS year – 2009 – is already the most fatal year for foreign forces deployed in Afghanistan since the end of 2001, after five occupying soldiers – four of them from the U.S. – were killed on August 25, at a time when U.S. public opinion is moving increasingly against the intervention.

Two U.S. soldiers and another from NATO’s ISAF unit died the next day in a bomb explosion in the southern region of that Central Asian country.

A total of 804 U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan over the last eight years. Even though four months remain until the end of the year, 298 foreign soldiers have already died there, an increase on the 294 fatalities of 2008, according to the icasualties.org.

These deaths come at a time when U.S. President Barack Obama’s strategy on Afghanistan is increasingly being criticized in his country, where the majority of the U.S. population is now firmly against the war.

The U.S. has the largest number (62,000) of the 100,000 foreign soldiers deployed in Afghanistan.

The south, particularly the province of Helmand (the domain of the Taliban and producer of 55% of the world’s opium crops) is the most violent region in the country.

International and Afghani troops have undertaken countless operations over several months, in preparation for the elections on Thursday August 20, losing a significant number of their troops, the majority of them to homemade bombs.

According to icasualties.org, 66 foreign soldiers died in August and 298 – of whom 174 are U.S. soldiers – have died since the beginning of 2009.

The insurrection has considerably intensified and expanded over the last two years.

The political problem is threatening to intensify in the United States where Obama could soon announce the deployment of reinforcements to Afghanistan, despite the fact that another 21,000 troops were recently sent to that nation.

His new commander for Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal should request new reinforcements over the next few weeks, but this would clash 24th with the wishes of the U.S. people.

On August 24, a Democratic senator demanded for the first time a withdrawal date for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, also questioning the effectiveness of reinforcements.

"It is time to begin the debate over a flexible calendar so that the people in the United States, in Afghanistan and the rest of the world see that we have the intention of withdrawing our troops," stated Senator Russell Feingold, who added that a withdrawal would not signify that his country was no longer pursuing the Islamist group Al Qaeda.