KABUL – Continued militancy and skirmishes have claimed the lives of more than 100 soldiers with NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the first quarter of the current year.
Since the beginning 2011, according to iCasalties, a website tracking the casualties of NATO-led forces in war on terror in Afghanistan, 103 soldiers with majority of them Americans have been killed in the post-Taliban country, a Chinese news agency reported.
The fatalities of NATO-led troops, registered so far this year indicates fall down in comparison with previous year in Afghanistan.
Thirty two soldiers with the military alliance, according to iCasualties, had been killed in January this year against 43 during the same period in 2010.
NATO’s casualties in February 2011 had been registered 38 against 53, killed in February 2010.
The fatalities of NATO-led forces in March this year, according to iCasualties has been registered 33 against 39 in March previous year.
In the latest waves of attacks against NATO-led troops for which Taliban militants claimed of responsibility was a suicide car bomb attack in Kapisa province, some 70 km north Afghan capital Kabul, on Wednesday leaving nine people injured including four soldiers and five civilians.
“It was a suicide attack carried out by militants against international troops in Tagab district at 02:30 p.m. local time ( 1000 GMT) as a result four foreign soldiers and five Afghan civilians were injured,” police chief of Tagab district Padshah Gul Bakhtyar said.
Meantime, Zabihullah Mujahid who claims to speak for the Taliban militants in talks with media via telephone from undisclosed location claimed of responsibility and said a Taliban fighter namely Abdul Rahman exploded his explosive-laden car next to a convoy of French troops leaving himself and 12 French soldiers dead.
However, police officer Bakhtyr rejected the claim, saying only nine persons including four foreign soldiers and five civilians’ sustained injuries in the blast.
Out of 103 NATO-led soldiers have been killed in Afghan militancy so far this year, 71 are Americans, 14 are Britons and the remaining 18 belongs to other nations contributing troops to Afghanistan within the framework of NATO-led ISAF force.
Forty eight countries have contributed over 140,000-strong forces in Afghanistan with some 100,000 of them Americans, followed by Britain which has 9,500 troops to help stabilize security in the militancy-plagued nation.
