KABUL: (MEP) – recently at least Four coalition soldiers were killed Sunday in southern Afghanistan, the American-led military said, in the coalition’s worst loss of life in a single incident since June.
The incident took place in the Zhari district, in Kandahar Province, said Javed Faisal, the spokesman for the provincial governor.
The International Security Assistance Force said in a statement that the four were killed “by enemy forces during a partnered operation.” It gave no further details. The coalition did not identify the nationality of the victims pending notification of their next of kin, but nearly all coalition soldiers in Zhari are Americans, the New York Times reported.
Jamal Agha, the district governor of Zhari, said the deaths took place in a fight between insurgents and a joint operation involving coalition and Afghan commandos. Mr. Faisal and Mr. Agha said the deaths were caused by a roadside bomb.
The last time as many as four coalition soldiers were killed was on June 18, when insurgents launched a rocket attack on the Bagram Airfield military base north of Kabul. The soldiers killed in that attack were all Americans.
In a separate incident on Saturday, a service member was shot dead “when an alleged contracted security guard shot the service member,” the coalition said.
Afghan officials said that attack took place at Forward Operating Base Apache in Qalat, the capital of Zabul Province in southern Afghanistan. According to the provincial chief of security, Ghulam Jilani Khan, an Afghan guard employed by DynCorp International, an American company that provides security guards for many American bases, had a dispute with an American soldier and killed him. Other soldiers then killed the attacker, he said.
Casualties among coalition forces have dropped dramatically this year, as Afghan security forces take over most of the fighting, and the number of foreign troops has decreased. Partnered operations such as the one Sunday have become relatively rare, except among special operations troops. American and other coalition advisers often accompany Afghan units in the field, as well.
According to the independent monitoring group iCasualties.org, 136 coalition soldiers have been killed so far this year, 106 of them Americans, the lowest rate since 2007.
