How many ta soldiers in afghanistan

The balance of these figures may change as inquests are concluded. Following a helicopter crash on 11 October , 2 further UK personnel have died while serving in Afghanistan, taking the total number of military deaths to Two personnel from and 33 Squadrons, Royal Air Force.

Sapper Adam Moralee from 32 Engineer Regiment died on 5 March as a result of non-battle-related injuries sustained in Camp Bastion. Warrant Officer Class 2 Ian Fisher from 3rd Battalion The Mercian Regiment was killed after his vehicle was subjected to a vehicle-borne suicide attack in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on 5 November Guardsman Karl Whittle from the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards died in Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham on Friday, 7 September from gunshot wounds he sustained when his checkpoint was attacked by insurgents in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province on 14 August Guardsman Jamie Shadrake of the Reconnaissance Platoon, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, died of gunshot wounds when his checkpoint was attacked by insurgents in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province on Friday, 17 August Corporal Alex Guy, of the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, was fatally wounded when leading his section forward to assist a group of Afghan soldiers who were pinned down following an insurgent ambush on Friday, 15 June Captain Stephen James Healey, from 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh, was killed when the vehicle he was travelling in was caught in the blast from an improvised explosive device while on patrol in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province on Saturday, 26 May Guardsman Michael Roland, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, was fatally wounded during an exchange of small arms fire whilst deployed with his company on a three-day operation to disrupt insurgent activity in a contested area in the north of Nahr-e Saraj district on Friday, 27 April He had been seriously wounded in a blast from an improvised explosive device on Wednesday, 11 April Captain Rupert William Michael Bowers, from 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, was leading a patrol to clear a position of the threat of insurgents in the Mirmandab region of Nahr-e Saraj district, Helmand province, on Wednesday, 21 March , when he was killed in the blast from an improvised explosive device.

Senior Aircraftman Ryan Tomlin, from 2 Squadron RAF Regiment, was taking part in a partnered patrol to reassure and interact with the local population in the Nad 'Ali district of central Helmand province when he was fatally wounded by small arms fire during an insurgent attack on Monday, 13 February Lance Corporal Gajbahadur Gurung from the Royal Gurkha Rifles, serving with 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, was killed on Friday, 27 January when his foot patrol to disrupt insurgent activity came under small arms fire in the Khar Nikah region of the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province.

Squadron Leader Anthony Downing of the Royal Air Force died of his wounds on Friday, 23 December after the vehicle in which he was travelling was caught in an explosion south of Kabul, in Afghanistan on Thursday, 22 December Captain Tom Jennings of the Royal Marines died after the vehicle in which he was travelling was caught in an explosion south of Kabul, in Afghanistan on Thursday, 22 December Lieutenant David Boyce and Lance Corporal Richard Scanlon, from 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards, were killed when their armoured vehicle struck an improvised explosive device while on patrol in the Yakchal region of the Nahr-e Saraj district of central Helmand on Thursday, 17 November Private Matthew Haseldin, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, was killed by a gunshot wound when his patrol in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province, Afghanistan, came under attack on Thursday, 3 November Rifleman Vijay Rai, 2nd Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, was killed by a gunshot wound when the checkpoint that he and his team were protecting in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province, Afghanistan, came under insurgent small arms fire on Saturday, 15 October Lance Corporal Kyle Cleet Marshall, from 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, was killed when an IED exploded while he was deployed on an operation to reassure and provide security for the population in an area in the south of the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province on Monday, 14 February The soldiers were deployed on an operation to reassure the local population and provide security in the Nad 'Ali District of Helmand province.

Warrant Officer Class 2 Company Sergeant Major Colin Beckett of 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment was killed in Afghanistan on the morning of Saturday 5 February when he was fatally wounded by an improvised explosive device which detonated as he was moving into position to cover his fellow patrol members.

Private John Howard, from 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, was killed in Afghanistan on Sunday 5 December when he was fatally wounded during an action against insurgents operating in Lashkar Gah. Rifleman Suraj Gurung from 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles was killed during a follow-up foot patrol after an attack on his patrol base on Saturday 2 October Corporal Matthew Thomas from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers was killed when the vehicle he was driving in was struck by an improvised explosive device in the Garmsir district of Helmand province on Saturday 25 September He was mortally wounded and died at Camp Bastion Role Three hospital.

Bombardier Stephen Gilbert from 4th Regiment Royal Artillery died in hospital in Birmingham on Saturday, 26 June from wounds sustained in Afghanistan as the result of an explosion on the afternoon of Thursday, 10 June Sergeant Steven William Darbyshire, 40 Commando Royal Marines, serving as part of Combined Force Sangin, was killed by small arms fire during a firefight with insurgent forces in the Sangin district of Helmand province on Wednesday, 23 June Lance Corporal Barry Buxton died on Monday, 3 May , after sustaining injuries in an accident alongside the Nahr-e Bughra canal as a result of the vehicle he was commanding rolling into the canal when the road collapsed.

Fusilier Jonathan Burgess from1st Battalion The Royal Welsh was killed as a result of gunshot wounds following a small arms engagement in the Nad 'Ali area of Helmand province on Wednesday, 7 April Guardsman Michael Sweeney from 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards was killed as a result of an explosion that happened in the Babaji district of central Helmand province on Thursday, 1 April Rifleman Daniel Holkham from 3rd Battalion The Rifles was killed as a result of an explosion which occurred in an area east of Sangin district centre in Helmand province during the afternoon of Saturday, 27 March Serjeant Steven Campbell, from 3rd Battalion The Rifles, was killed in Afghanistan on Monday, 22 March as a result of an improvised explosive device which detonated while he was patrolling around 3km south of Sangin district centre.

Rifleman Liam Maughan of 3rd Battalion The Rifles died from wounds received as a result of small arms fire near Sangin, in Helmand province, during the morning of Saturday, 6 March Rifleman Jonathon Allott of 3rd Battalion The Rifles died from wounds received as a result of an explosion which occurred near Sangin, in Helmand province, during the morning of Friday, 5 March Sergeant Paul Fox from 28 Engineer Regiment, attached to the Brigade Reconnaissance Force, was killed by an improvised explosive device while on a foot patrol in southern Nad 'Ali, Helmand province, on Friday, 26 February Lance Sergeant Dave Greenhalgh, from 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, was killed when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device, near Lashkar Gah, Helmand province, on Saturday, 13 February Kingsman Sean Dawson from 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment was killed as a result of small arms fire sustained during a contact with enemy insurgents in the Musa Qal'ah district of Helmand province on Sunday, 14 February Sapper David Watson from 33 Engineer Regiment Explosive Ordnance Disposal died of wounds sustained in an explosion caused by an improvised explosive device on Thursday, 31 December in the vicinity of Patrol Base Blenheim in the Sangin region of Helmand province.

Rifleman Aidan Howell of 3rd Battalion The Rifles was killed as a result of an explosion that happened near Forward Operating Base Zeebrugge in the Kajaki area of Helmand province during the afternoon of 28 December Lance Corporal Tommy Brown from The Parachute Regiment was killed in Afghanistan on Tuesday, 22 December as a result of a suspected improvised explosive device blast while on a foot patrol about 1km south of Sangin in central Helmand province.

External Support As just discussed, the Taliban appear to have a sustainable, diversified funding model for their fighting forces. Taliban leaders are thus quite reliant on sanctuaries in Pakistan for their own safety and comfort. While this has occasionally made them vulnerable to pressure by Pakistan the arrest of Mullah Baradar is an important case in this regard , this pressure has thus far not been significant enough to warrant the group completely decamping to Afghanistan.

The continued provision of this funding is at risk in the absence of U. As described by the commander of U. This prioritization caused them to concentrate forces in more populous areas and remove forces from more remote, sparsely inhabited areas.

It is perhaps not surprising then that the last reported official U. By late , the new U. This theoretical conclusion is supported by independent analyses of the Taliban in the context of theories of insurgency cohesion, as well as by observations of ANDSF manpower trends.

Assessment: Strong Taliban advantage. Summary Table 1 summarizes the comparative discussion of each factor and presents a net assessment of each. As the last row indicates, the net assessment of these factors tilts slightly to the advantage of the Taliban.

While the ANDSF field a slightly larger fighting force and have vastly more technical capabilities than the Taliban, they are almost entirely reliant on external funding 75 percent from the United States —most critically, for salaries, procurement, and sustainment of those technical capabilities.

But that force is cohesive and appears to be financially sustainable, and is employing technologies that are sustainable and a strategy that has been proven to work in Afghanistan.

Conclusion and Implications The author set out in this article to address the question: If the United States withdraws the remainder of its forces from Afghanistan, would the ANDSF or the Taliban be stronger militarily? This finding has numerous implications, but this article now focuses on two immediate suggestions for improving the military balance in Afghanistan.

While authorized for an end strength of , soldiers and patrolmen, the ANDSF has never approached that figure and is currently about 63, personnel short. Growing the ANDSF to their approved end strength would give the force a much stronger size advantage than it currently enjoys.

While size is not everything, in an attrition war of territorial control—which the war in Afghanistan has steadily become—it is a critical factor. Having a larger force may also help mitigate the risk of increased desertions or defections by members of the ANDSF if U. Second, the U. As this analysis shows, that advantage is today quite large.

However, it has come at the expense of dependency—the ANDSF are currently far too complex and expensive for the government to sustain. This has been mitigated for years by advisors who have been directly performing critical support and sustainment functions of the ANDSF.

If the United States fully withdraws those advisors, as stipulated in the U. This will result both from increasing overuse and cannibalization of technical capabilities e. This would ideally include significant adjustments to both force structure and force employment. In conclusion, the author finds that if the United States were to withdraw the remainder of its forces from Afghanistan, the Taliban would enjoy a slight military advantage that would increase in a compounding manner over time.

His work at CNA has focused on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency activities across much of the Middle East and South Asia, including numerous deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. And around 1, TA troops still support regular troops each year in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans. Numbers reached a peak at the height of the Iraq invasion, in March , when 46, British troops were involved.

Certainly from the loose coalition of mounted yeomanry units made up of farmers and tenants that made up volunteer armies before the TA was founded on 1 April, But ever since the First World War, when the TA was first mobilised, serving TA soldiers have quickly become almost indistinguishable from their full-time comrades.

But while the commitment of its troops may have stayed the same, the TA's size has fluctuated. After doubling in size during the Second World War, its membership and resources dwindled thereafter. By the early s, its reputation had similarly shrunk, seen as good for little more than guarding the home front. Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq stretched the British armed forces to their very limits.

Suddenly the TA found itself catapulted into a far more important role. It switched from becoming an under-used reserve force to in-demand battalions seeing active service. Nearly 7, TA soldiers found themselves on their away to Iraq in as part of Operation Telic, the name given to British participation in the country.

With the increased activity came a change in rhetoric from Whitehall. Another restructuring of the Army in saw the government change the TA's status to reserves of the regular regiments — an acknowledgement that its recruits were now being asked to do much more.

The 15 TA infantry battalions were squashed down into 14, though numbers remained the same. Not for long, according to Kevin Mervin, a former TA soldier who served as a recovery mechanic during the Iraq invasion.

He says that any mutual suspicions soon wear off. Your training is the same — you are part of that unit. And because you have life experience, some of the younger guys also look up to you for guidance.