KABUL: Three US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan’s eastern borderlands yesterday, US and Nato officials said, the first Nato combat deaths this month.
The soldiers, from the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), were killed by insurgents in Paktia province, a US official said. The last Nato soldier to be killed in action was late last month.
Paktia is one of several provinces that border Pakistan and have endured some of the highest levels of fighting during the US-led 12-year war in Afghanistan.
US soldiers based in Paktia are rarely involved in combat operations since handing over security responsibility to Afghan security forces earlier this year.
They now primarily train their Afghan colleagues. The Nato-led mission has about 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan, of whom 68,000 are American.
The numbers are expected to reduce sharply before the official end of the Nato-led combat mission on December 31, 2014.
More than 2,100 US soldiers have died during the war in Afghanistan.
Yesterday’s deaths bring the number of fatalities among foreign troops this year to 114, according to the independent icasualties.org website, which recorded 402 deaths in 2012.
“Three International Security Assistance Force service members died following an enemies of Afghanistan attack in eastern Afghanistan today,” an ISAF statement said.
In line with ISAF policy, nationalities were not given and casualty identification was left to the concerned country.
International military casualties have fallen in recent months as the Afghan army and police take the lead in the battle to thwart the Taliban insurgency. But areas of the south and east remain highly dangerous.
Agencies
