July 12, 2011: Canada recently withdrew its combat forces from Afghanistan. The Taliban promptly took credit for that, claiming that the casualties the Taliban inflicted on Canadian troops forced Canada to leave. This claim is nothing new, the Taliban have been predicting such a withdrawal for over five years, and have been inflicting a disproportionate number of casualties on the Canadians. The Taliban said they were deliberately targeting the Canadians in the belief that anti-war political groups back home could be strengthened, and Canadian troops withdrawn, if enough casualties were inflicted.

During nine years of operations in Afghanistan, 157 Canadian troops died (87 percent because of the Taliban.) For most of that time, Canada suffered, proportionately, twice as many dead in Afghanistan as the United States. During this period, the U.S. had ten times as many troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. also has ten times the population of Canada, so the 3,000 Canadians are making the same scale of effort, but suffering more losses in the process. But most of those losses were not from "fighting the Taliban," but from mines in the road. Back in early 2007, 81 percent of Canadian deaths were from IEDs (roadside bombs). But that declined as Canadian troops received more bomb resistant armored vehicles.

Since the Taliban couldn't cope with Canadian troops in head-to-head combat, they devoted much of their roadside bombing effort against the Canadians. But in the last year, the Taliban were only able to kill four Canadian troops. Still, the constant Taliban propaganda about how killing even a few Canadian troops would eventually force the Canadians to withdraw, is believed by most Afghans. Canada decided to withdraw all their troops from Afghanistan back in 2008, and more American troops have moved in to replace them.