Four International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers were killed in separate insurgent attacks in the
Taliban’s southern heartland, the alliance said on Saturday.
The deaths were announced in brief statements from the multinational force that neither gave the soldiers’ nationalities nor the exact location of the attacks.
One soldier died following an insurgent attack on Saturday. Two NATO-led service members were killed in an improvised explosive device attack a day earlier.
Another soldier was killed in a separate militant assault, while a fourth succumbed to a non-battle related injury, the multinational force said, without giving further details.
Earlier, eight US troops and two Afghan policemen were killed in a massive bombing in Kandahar province. The joint force was attacked during a foot patrol in Shorabak district near the Pakistan border.
With the latest fatalities, the number of foreign troops killed in
Afghanistan so far during the current year has reached 193. In 2010,
the deadliest year for ISAF, 711 NATO-led soldiers were killed.
Southern and eastern Afghanistan are the country’s most volatile areas.
The recent violence is part of the Taliban spring offensive, with
stepped-up roadside bomb and suicide attacks, as well as insurgent
assaults on mountainous or rural outposts.
The effectiveness of the Taliban campaign could affect the size of
President Barack Obama’s planned drawdown of US troops in July. Nato
is to hand over control of security in the country to Afghans by 2014.