Former President Donald Trump has claimed on the campaign trail that there was an 18-month period during his presidency when no U.S. service members died in combat in Afghanistan. While there was an 18-month stretch with no combat deaths in Afghanistan, Trump was not in office for the entirety of that time. Trump originally made this claim years ago but has repeated it recently as the U.S. marked three years since the August 2021 Abbey Gate suicide bombing in Afghanistan.
Government data shows that there was no 18-month period entirely under Trump’s presidency during which there were no combat deaths in Afghanistan. The last service members killed in combat in Afghanistan during Trump’s tenure were in February 2020. Trump had reached a deal with the Taliban for U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. During an 18-month stretch from March 2020 to late August 2021, no U.S. service members died in Afghanistan. Trump was in office for roughly 11 months of this time period, and President Biden was in office for the final seven months.
After President Biden took office in January 2021, there were no combat deaths reported until U.S. forces began their withdrawal from Afghanistan, a plan set in motion by Trump before leaving office. Throughout Trump’s entire term, there were a total of 45 combat deaths reported in Afghanistan. Over the course of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, over 1,900 service members are classified as “hostile deaths” stemming from combat operations under Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, with a total of 2,459 American troops killed during the operations.
Laura Doan, a fact checker for CBS News Confirmed, covers misinformation, AI, and social media. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for clarification on the discrepancy in Trump’s claim regarding the 18-month period without combat deaths in Afghanistan during his presidency. Despite the lack of combat deaths during the specified time period, it is important to clarify the details and context surrounding the claim made by Trump on the campaign trail regarding his administration’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan.
