​More people were killed in Drug War-related violence in Mexico last year than died in the war in Afghanistan, according to year-end reports from both countries.

In Afghanistan, about 10,000 people — 2,043 of them civilians — died in the fighting last year.

Although that conflict involves air power, heavy weapons, and numerous roadside bombs, it was less deadly last year than the Mexican Drug War, with a death toll estimated at around 13,000 by CNN

In mid-December, the Mexican attorney general’s office reported that 12,456 people had been killed through the end of November, reports Phillip Smith at AlterNet . With a death toll of more than 1,000 per month in 2010, a year-end figure of more than 13,000 looks to be accurate.

More than 140,000 U.S. and NATO troops are in the ninth year of a guerilla war with thousands of Taliban fighters who reap the profits of the illegal opium/heroin trade.