roadside bomb attack killed four foreign soldiers in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
"Four International Security Assistance Force service members died following an improvised explosive device attack in eastern Afghanistan today," ISAF said.
"It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities."
ISAF did not give further details of who was involved, what exactly happened or where it occurred, in line with policy.
A total of 184 international troops have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year, according to a tally kept by the independent website icasualties.org. That compares with a tally of 711 for last year.
Troop commanders have warned of another hard period ahead after the Taliban announced the start of their spring offensive at the end of last month.
The US commander of foreign troops on the ground, US General David Petraeus, warned in a memo released Saturday that fighting was at a "pivotal moment" and ISAF soldiers faced "difficult situations" ahead.
There are around 130,000 international troops in Afghanistan, some 90,000 of them from the United States.
Limited foreign troop withdrawals from a handful of safer areas of Afghanistan are due to start in July, allowing Afghan forces to take over control of security.
International combat troops are due to complete their pull out of Afghanistan in 2014 although Western officials stress their countries will have a long-term partnership with Afghanistan beyond that.
0 comments:
Post a Comment