A bomb attack killed four foreign soldiers from NATO’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, the military said. “Four International Security Assistance Force service members died following an improvised explosive device attack in eastern Afghanistan today,” a statement said.
ISAF does not give details of the nationalities of dead soldiers or how fatal incidents happen, leaving that to officials from the relevant country. Of the 130,000 international troops in Afghanistan trying to reverse a nearly 10-year Taliban insurgency, 90,000 come from the United States. The deaths bring to 224 the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this year, according to an AFP tally based on that kept by the independent website icasualties.org.
A total of 711 died last year. More foreign troops were killed in April and May this year, the early stages of the annual fighting season in Afghanistan, than in the same months of any other year of the decade-long conflict. The death toll stood at 110 — up from 85 in the same period last year — according to figures from icasualties.org.
Saturday’s deaths came days after one of the deadliest roadside bombings of recent months on May 27, when eight US soldiers were killed by two successive blasts in the Shorabak district in the troubled Kandahar province in the south. Crude, home-made roadside bombs are a common tactic used by the Taliban and other insurgents to target foreign troops.
