Four NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan

KABUL, March 1, 2010 (AFP) - Four NATO soldiers were killed in Afghanistan on Monday, the military said, taking the number of foreign troops killed this year to 105 and more than double those killed in the first two months of 2009.

Two soldiers died "in an indirect fire attack" in western Afghanistan and a third in "a small arms attack" in the south, the NATO-run International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.

ISAF earlier announced the death of another soldier in a suicide bomb attack on Monday in the southern province of Kandahar.

The military did not release the nationalities of the dead soldiers, leaving the announcements to their home countries.

There are more than 120,000 US-led and NATO troops deployed in Afghanistan to help the Western-backed Afghan government fight an insurgency being waged by the remnants of the Taliban.

The insurgency began soon after the Taliban regime was toppled in the 2001 US-led invasion and has become deadlier with each passing year.

The year 2009 was the deadliest since the war began, with 519 foreign soldiers killed according to the independent icasualties.org website that tracks military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Monday's deaths bring to 105 the number of foreign soldiers to die in Afghanistan so far this year, according to an AFP count based on the running tally kept by the independent website.

The website reported that 101 foreign soldiers were killed in Afghanistan during the first two months of 2010, compared to 49 for the same period last year.

Violence has traditionally eased slightly during the harsh winter months in Afghanistan but NATO commanders have warned Western nations to brace for casualties as they implement a last-ditch strategy to end the eight-year war.

Last month, about 15,000 US, NATO and Afghan troops launched a major assault against the Taliban in the southern province of Helmand designed to capture their strongholds and restore governance.

Military commanders have said the offensive will expand in other flashpoint regions such as Kandahar where two bomb blasts, claimed by Taliban, took the lives of a NATO soldier and five Afghans on Monday.



(c) 2010 AFP