Afghan blast kills NATO soldier The Associated Press - 5 minutes ago ... death brings the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year to 110, including 35 so far this month — a faster monthly pace than in Iraq, ...

NATO said Wednesday that an explosion killed one of its soldiers on a patrol in southern Afghanistan, the latest in a string of deadly attacks on foreign troops. The blast happened Tuesday in Nahri Sarraj district of Helmand province, an alliance statement said. It didn't provide the soldier's nationality or any other details. Fighting between Taliban-led militants and security forces is surging, damping hopes that the six-year, multibillion-dollar effort to stabilize the country will succeed any time soon. Tuesday's death brings the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year to 110, including 35 so far this month — a faster monthly pace than in Iraq, where 23 have died so far in June, according to an Associated Press count. The top U.S. general in Afghanistan said Tuesday that insurgent attacks have increased 40 percent this year over 2007 in the eastern part of the country. Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser told reporters in Washington that troops are tracking "a syndicate" of militants including Taliban, al-Qaida, Pakistanis and Afghans who move back and forth over the Afghan-Pakistani border. Officials say those groups are turning increasingly to Iraq-style guerrilla tactics because American warplanes inflict heavy casualties on them whenever they attack in numbers. As well as planting roadside bombs and launching suicide attackers, militants have regularly attacked civilian convoys carrying supplies to military bases. On Tuesday, gunmen attacked a column of trucks near Saydabad, a town in Wardak province about 40 miles south of the capital, Kabul, torching some 40 vehicles. The attackers fled when Afghan and foreign security forces, including aircraft, reached the scene, officials said. Associated Press Television News video showed blazing trucks standing three abreast on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, black smoke billowing into nearby mud-walled villages. NATO confirmed the incident and said there were reports of casualties, but provided no details. The alliance already announced the deaths of two other soldiers on Tuesday. One was killed when a mine blast hit a patrol in Khogyani, a district of the eastern province of Nangarhar. Three more soldiers were wounded, it said. Their nationalities were not released. The second, a British soldier, died during a fire-fight with Taliban insurgents in Sangin, another district of Helmand province.

Tags: Kabul, Soldiers

This entry was posted on June 25, 2008 at 2:40 AM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Posted in Soldiers In Iraq by Comments Off