KABUL – A bomb killed three NATO soldiers in southern Afghanistan, the joint force said Sunday, bringing to eight the number of foreign troops killed in the country in the deadliest day since June last year.
On Saturday, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said five of its troops had been killed in a suicide attack at an Afghan army base in the eastern province of Nangarhar, in which four Afghan soldiers also died.
On Sunday ISAF said three more of its troops had been killed on the same day in the south of the country in an improvised bomb explosion, a weapon of choice for the Taliban and other insurgent groups.
The force did not provide further details, including the nationalities of those killed in line with policy, but southern and eastern Afghanistan are dominated by US troops.
About 140,000 foreign, mainly US, troops are deployed in Afghanistan to help President Hamid Karzai’s Western-backed government defeat the Taliban.
Saturday’s deaths made it the most deadly day for international troops in the country since June last year, when two separate days each saw 10 Foreign soldiers killed.
After a bloody 2010 in which 711 foreign troops died, at least 128 have been killed so far this year against 164 in the first three and a half months of 2010, according to icasualties.org, an independent website counting military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Afghan and NATO military commanders have warned of more violence in the coming months, with the traditional fighting season underway in a politically important year for the war-battered nation.
Home-grown troops are due to start taking over responsibility for security from Western forces as part of a planned US military withdrawal set to be completed in 2014.
Karzai announced the names of eight cities and provinces earlier this year where his security forces will take the full control in June, the official start of the transfer of responsibilities.
