INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A boy receives medical treatment after a blast at a mosque in Nangarhar province,At least 62 people have been killed and dozens injured by
a bomb during Friday prayers at a mosque in Afghanistan, according to a provincial spokesman.The force of the blast, in eastern Nangarhar
province, destroyed the building's roof, eyewitnesses said.No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.The blast came just
hours after the UN said the number of civilian deaths in the war-torn country had reached unprecedented levels over the summer.According to
the UN, 1,174 civilians were killed between July and September, with July being the deadliest month for a decade.A study which attempted to
document every killing during the month of August found a fifth of all those who lost their lives were civilians.A month of killing in
Afghanistan Attaullah Khogyani, the provincial governor's spokesman, told that the 62 people killed and 36 more injured in Friday's attack
were worshippers.The mosque sits in the district of Haska Mina, about 50km (30 miles) from the provincial capital Jalalabad.Men carry an
injured person to a hospital after a bomb blast at a mosque in JalalabadEyewitnesses reported hearing a loud explosion, before the roof of
the mosque caved in."The number of casualties may rise as the rescue team and people are working to bring out the bodies from the rubble,"
Sohrab Qaderi, a member of the provincial council in Nangarhar, told the Reuters news agency.Afghanistan war: Tracking the killings An
average of 74 men, women and children were killed every day in Afghanistan throughout the month of August, the BBC has found.The findings
show unrelenting violence affects almost the entire country as US negotiations to withdraw after 18 years of war are in disarray.We
confirmed 611 security incidents in which 2,307 people died.Both the Taliban and Afghan government have questioned the validity of the
casualty figures identified by the BBC.Most people killed were combatants - including more Taliban fighters than expected - but a fifth were
civilians.A further 1,948 people were injured.The casualty toll is just a snapshot of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan
However, it paints a bleak image as US President Donald Trump looks to fulfil a key foreign policy aim and withdraw American troops.Just
more than a week ago, President Trump cancelled year-long peace negotiations between the Taliban and United States, although a return to
talks is not ruled out.A ceasefire, however, was never on the table, and hundreds of Afghans are still dying each week
There are fears that violence will worsen ahead of presidential elections due at the end of the month.To learn how the BBC collected its
data in August, scroll to the end.Following a violent first week in August, both Taliban and government forces observed an unofficial
ceasefire during the three days of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.Nonetheless, the BBC confirmed 90 people died in violence during the
holiday period, from the evening of 10 August to sunset on 13 August.The highest number of casualties occurred on 27 August, with 162
confirmed dead and 47 injured, primarily Taliban fighters in air strikes.But the deadliest day for civilians was 18 August, when 112 people
Most died in a single incident when a suicide bomber killed 92 people and injured 142 at a wedding in Kabul.The groom Mirwais, a tailor from
a working-class district, had struggled to save for the event that should have been the happiest day of his life.Instead, several of his
closest friends were killed
His new bride lost several cousins and a brother
Mirwais says that she now wants to burn her wedding dress and photo album.He told the BBC, "all my hopes and all my joy was destroyed in one
second".The Islamic State group said it carried out the attack.92 people were killed and 142 injured when IS bombed a wedding in KabulWho is
most affected?The Taliban have never been more powerful since 2001, but their fighters account for nearly half of all deaths confirmed by
the BBC for August - a huge number, which comes as a surprise.There may be a number of factors for this, including the fact the Taliban have
been on the offensive during peace talks, and US-led forces have increased air strikes and night raids in response, killing many Taliban as
well as civilians.How many fighters the Taliban has lost in recent years is not known
It's thought they may have about 60,000 men under arms.In a statement the Taliban said it strongly rejected "the baseless allegations" of
the killing of 1,000 fighters in the past month, adding that there was no document that could prove "casualties to that scale".It described
the BBC's report as "based on the daily propaganda of interior and defence ministries of Kabul administration".Afghan security force
casualties are top secret - so our own confirmed counts for August may still be lower than reality
In January Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said 45,000 members of the security forces had been killed since late 2014.The Afghan Ministry of
Defence said the research needed "a serious review and a more serious research based on ground realities must be conducted".The BBC
confirmed that 473 civilians had been killed and 786 injured in August."The conflict has a devastating impact on civilians," says Fiona
Frazer, human rights chief for the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)."United Nations data strongly indicates that more civilians are killed
or injured in Afghanistan due to armed conflict than anywhere else on Earth."Although the number of recorded civilian casualties are
disturbingly high, due to rigorous methods of verification, the published figures almost certainly do not reflect the true scale of
harm."The US and Afghan militaries routinely deny or fail to report civilian casualty figures.Large events, like the battle for the northern
city of Kunduz or the Kabul wedding bombing, are the ones that make international headlines.Yet most of Afghanistan's deadly conflict is
persistent, small-scale violence, typically between Afghan security forces and the Taliban.In only three of Afghanistan's 34 provinces was
the BBC unable to confirm fatalities in August.One in 10 deaths occurred in the province of Ghazni, a restive area and a centre of Taliban
control, and therefore a key target of Afghan military operations.One-third of the 66 attacks in Ghazni were airstrikes on suspected Taliban
locations.Afghan civilians describe living in an environment of extreme uncertainty.Mohibullah from Uruzgan province spoke to the BBC in
Kandahar's main hospital after doctors extracted a bullet from his brother's shoulder."Whenever there's an operation in our area, ordinary
people can't move anywhere, if they do, American or Afghan forces shoot them," he said angrily."They drop bombs wherever they want, all the
houses around us have been destroyed."The deadliest conflict in the world?The war in Afghanistan has gone on for four decades, and has been
at a stalemate for a number of years.Late last year, the Armed Conflict Location - Event Data Project (ACLED) pronounced Afghanistan the
most lethal conflict in the world for battle-related deaths.Most fighting in Afghanistan is close-range conflict between government forces
and TalibanTheir casualty data for 2019 shows Afghanistan maintaining that position
Fatalities in August in Afghanistan are three times higher than either Syria or Yemen, according to ACLED data.And in June 2019, Afghanistan
was named the least peaceful place in the world by the Global Peace Index report.The BBC collected more than 1,200 reports of violent
incidents in Afghanistan between 1-31 August 2019.BBC Afghan journalists traced every reported incident, from those that often wouldn't make
it to news headlines to major attacks
To verify reports and chase up tip-offs, the BBC used its extensive on-the-ground team to contact multiple sources across Afghanistan
including government officials, health workers, tribal elders, local residents, eye witnesses, hospital records and Taliban sources
A minimum of two reliable sources was required to confirm an event
Confirmed casualties from hospital reports were considered reliable even without secondary sourcing.Only the lowest-confirmed casualty
If a range of casualties was given (eg 10-12), the minimum figure was considered the most reliable
If multiple sources provided conflicting figures for an incident, the minimum reliable number was included and the rest dropped
As a result, hundreds of reports were excluded and the true number of attacks and casualties co
