More than 800 Afghan soldiers have been killed in the country's conflict with militants so far this year, more than any other year since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, an army spokesman said Wednesday, DPA reported.
"A total of 806 Afghan National Army soldiers have been martyred in 2010," Defence Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi said. Of those, 43 died in November, and 63 have been killed so far this month.
The toll was up more than 25 per cent from 632 fatalities for the whole of 2009, another ministry official said.
This year has also been the bloodiest for foreign troops and Afghan civilians since the start of the war nine years ago with more than 700 NATO-led foreign troops and at least 2,400 civilians killed.
NATO has decided to start transferring overall security responsibility to local security forces in July and plans to have the handover complete by the end of 2014.
Afghanistan currently has about 150,000 soldiers and more than 120,000 police officers trained by US and other NATO troops since 2002.
The alliance plans to increase that number to 300,000 by next summer when the United States and other NATO members are slated to begin drawing down some of their 150,000 soldiers in the country.
Afghan military officials said Afghanistan needs at least 400,000 police and army personnel to stand against the Taliban and interference by neighbouring countries.
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