There's once again a full-blown air war over Afghanistan. Last month, NATO attack planes dropped their bombs and fired their guns on 700 separate missions, according to U.S. Air Force statistics. That's more than double the 257 attack sorties they flew in September 2009, and one of the highest single-month totals of the entire nine-year Afghan campaign.

At one time, airstrikes formed a cornerstone of the Afghan campaign – a way to overcome the country's rugged campaign and relative lack of counterinsurgent troops. But eventually, the civilian toll of that strategy grew too high. After U.S. aircraft killed as many as 97 innocents in a single incident, Gen. Stanley McChrystal imposed tight restrictions on allied air power.

In late June, after Gen. David Petraeus took command of the Afghan war effort from McChrystal, there was speculation that the new boss might undo some of the restrictions. It wasn't just that McChrystal's rules had made it beyond-tough for troops to call in airstrikes – even when they were under enemy attack. Petraeus' history in Iraq also suggested a greater willingness to bomb adversaries, despite the concerns about civilian casualties. Lethal, munitions-dropping sorties more-than-quadrupled under Petraeus' leadership.

At least publicly, however, Petraeus and his generals said that there would be no major changes to the so-called "rules of engagement," which govern the use of force. Ground commanders were no longer allowed to add extra restrictions. Strikes from the sky were still considered a "choice of last resort," as Brig. Gen. Jack Briggs II told Danger Room in August.

By then, those attacks were already starting to creep up from their McChrystal-era lows: Five hundred lethal sorties in August, compared to 405 the year before.

It's part of a larger increase in the larger Afghan air campaign. Surveillance flights are soaring – nearly triple last year's amount. According to statistics (.pdf) supplied by the U.S. Force, 40 million pounds of supplies were airdropped in the first nine months of 2010, compared to 32 million pounds in all of 2009.

There have been one-time spikes in air strikes before – even under McChrystal, who famously curbed the attacks. And, of course, some of the added strikes can be explained by the fact that there are now more soldiers and Marines in harm's way. Some portion of those ground forces will invariably call for air support. But since Petraeus took over the Afghan campaign, every month has seen an increase in airstrikes. And every every increase has been bigger than the previous month's. Welcome to Afghanistan's new, lethal air war.

Photo: USAF

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