KABUL – Four NATO soldiers were killed on Monday in a wave of insurgent attacks across Afghanistan, the international force said. Three of the soldiers died in separate improvised bomb blasts in the west, south and east of Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
An Afghan government spokesman in the western city of Herat said that the soldier who died in the province was Italian and that three other Italian soldiers were wounded in the same blast.
ISAF could not confirm this in line with policy. A fourth soldier died in a firefight against rebels in the country’s east, ISAF added. Over 60 international soldiers have died so far this year in Afghanistan.
Last year, the total stood at 712 dead according to independent website iCasualties.org, the deadliest year for international troops since the war began in 2001.
There are about 140,000 foreign, mainly US, troops deployed in Afghanistan to help President Hamid Karzai’s Western-backed government defeat the Taliban.
The Taliban were in power between 1996 and 2001 but were ousted after the September 11 attacks.
