Jeremy Sapienza / AntiWar.com & Agence France-Presse & Associated Press – 2011-08-07 19:43:52
IED Attacks on the Rise as More Troops Killed
Jeremy Sapienza / AntiWar.com
(August 07, 2011) — Four NATO troops were killed in Afghanistan a day after the Taliban took responsibility for the shootdown of a helicopter that killed 30 US soldiers, their translator, and seven Afghan troops. Some of the dead included the very SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden.
Two of the soldiers were French, killed in an attack in the Tagab valley, in northeast of the country. The two others were American, killed when their vehicle rove over a roadside bomb near Kabul.
Nearly 150 NATO troops have been killed in helicopter crashes and shootdowns since the 2001 invasion, some 100 of whom have been American.
But the main source of fatalities for foreign troops has been or IEDs — used by local insurgents, planted on roadsides. These bombs have killed over 1,700 occupying soldiers and wounded nearly 8,000. And AFP reports IED use is on the rise.
383 foreign soldiers have been killed so far this year in Afghanistan, and 711 were kill last year, according to icasualties.org.
Four NATO Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan
Agence France-Presse
KABUL (August 7, 2011) — Four NATO soldiers were killed Sunday in two separate insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, the force said, just over a day after 30 US troops died in a helicopter crash.
Two were killed in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan and the other two in a similar attack in the east, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
ISAF did not provide details including the exact locations where the troops were killed, nor did it release their nationalities, following its policy of leaving the announcement to their respective nations.
The new deaths follow a deadly helicopter crash that killed 30 US Special Operations soldiers and seven of their Afghan counterparts in Wardak, a troubled region near capital Kabul.
The latest fatalities bring to 383 the number of foreign soldiers killed so far this year, against 711 for the whole of last year, according to the independent website icasualties.org.
The force said it was investigating what caused the deadly crash after local officials and the Afghan military said the Taliban brought it down. The militants have claimed they shot down the Chinook helicopter in a rocket attack.
Afghanistan is in the grip of a deadly insurgency launched in late 2001 by the remnants of the Taliban whose regime was toppled in a US-led invasion after the September 11 attacks.
There are tens of thousands of Western, mostly US troops deployed to Afghanistan to quell the insurgency. The US has already started drawing down its troops in a process that will see Afghan security forces taking over all security responsibilities from foreign forces by 2014.
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Deadliest Military Crashes in Afghanistan
Associated Press
(August 6, 2011) — Some of the deadliest military air crashes in Afghanistan since the US invasion on Oct. 7, 2001:
• Aug. 6, 2011: A CH-47 Chinook helicopter crashes in eastern Wardak province, killing 30 U.S. special operation troops, a translator, and seven Afghan commandos.
• Sept. 21, 2010: U.S. Army Blackhawk crashes in southern Zabul province, killing nine troops on board, including four Navy SEALs.
• May 30, 2007: U.S. Chinook crashes while under fire in southern Helmand, killing one British, one Canadian and five American troops.
• Feb. 18, 2007: U.S. Chinook carrying 22 U.S. soldiers crashes in southern Zabul province, killing eight and injuring 14.
• Sept. 2, 2006: British Nimrod aircraft crashes near Kandahar in the south, killing 14 crew members.
• May 5, 2006: U.S. Chinook helicopter crashes while attempting a night landing on a small mountaintop in eastern Kunar province, killing 10 U.S. soldiers.
• Aug. 16, 2005: Spanish helicopter crashes near the western city of Herat, killing 17 Spanish soldiers.
• June 28, 2005: U.S. helicopter is shot down in eastern Kunar province during a rescue operation, killing 16 special operations troops.
• April 6, 2005: U.S. Chinook helicopter crashes in a sandstorm near eastern Ghazni, killing 15 American troops and three civilian contractors.
• Dec. 21, 2002: German army helicopter crashes in Kabul, killing seven German soldiers.
• March 4, 2002: U.S. Chinook helicopter is shot down in eastern Afghanistan, killing seven American troops.
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