Four U.S. coalition soldiers dead in Afghan attacks
Three members of Afghanistan's U.S.-led coalition force and an Afghan interpreter were killed when their convoy was blown up by a bomb near the Afghan capital, the force said in a statement on Friday. Thursday's attack in Wardak, southwest of Kabul, took the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan in June to 39, the highest monthly toll since U.S.-led troops ousted the Taliban in late 2001.
Credit: Reuters/Graphics
KABUL (Reuters) - Four members of the U.S.-led coalition force have been killed in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, the force said on Friday, making June the deadliest month for foreign soldiers since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.
The deaths took the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan this month to 40. More than 200 foreign troops were killed in Afghanistan last year.
Three soldiers from the U.S.-led force and an interpreter were killed in Wardak province southwest of Kabul on Thursday when their convoy was blown up by a bomb, the force said in a statement.
In another attack on Thursday, in the southwestern province of Farah, a coalition soldier was killed and seven people, including two Afghan soldiers, were wounded, the U.S. military said.
It did not identify those killed or give their nationalities but most members of the coalition force are American. A separate NATO-led force is also battling a stubborn Taliban insurgency.
In a separate incident, about 12 rounds fired from the Pakistani side of the border killed a child and wounded 12 people in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar on Friday, a provincial official said.
There have been several incidents of fire across the border in recent days, apparently fired by Taliban taking refuge on the Pakistani side. Four Afghan civilians were killed and eight wounded in such attacks last week.
Eleven Pakistani border soldiers were killed in a U.S. air strike on the Pakistani side of the border on June 10.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened this month to send troops into Pakistan to fight the Taliban in border sanctuaries.
Pakistan said this week it would not allow militants to attack Afghanistan from its territory and it would never let foreign troops operate on its soil.
(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Robert Birsel)
