US war on terror kills over 80,000 in Pakistan: Report

Islamabad, March 29

More than 80,000 Pakistanis, including over 48,000 civilians, have been killed in the decade-long US-led war against terror in the country, according to a new report.

The report titled “Body Count: Casualty Figures after 10 Years of the War on Terror” was released by the Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War along with Physicians for Social Responsibility and Physicians for Global Survival, The Express Tribune reported today.

The report, dealing with the conflict from 2004 until the end of 2013, shows that a total of 81,325 to 81,860 persons - including 48,504 civilians, 45 journalists, 416-951 civilians killed by drones, 5,498 security personnel and 26,862 militants - lost their lives in the US-led war on terror.

It also said that around 1.3 million people were directly and indirectly killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as a result of US-led wars in the regions during the the same period.

One million people were killed in Iraq and 220,000 in Afghanistan as a result of the war, it said.

“The figure is approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision makers are aware,” the authors of the study said.

“And this is only a conservative estimate. The total number of deaths in the three countries could also be in excess of 2 million,” they said.

The Pakistan government, however, has officially maintained that around 60,000 civilians and security personnel have been killed in the war on terror. — PTI