U.S. troop deaths increase in Afghanistan

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Saturday, January 10, 2009

MAIWAND DISTRICT, Afghanistan — At least five U.S. soldiers have been reported killed by Taliban attacks in Afghanistan in the past two days, one of the sharpest spikes in U.S. troop deaths in the country in weeks.

Three U.S. troops were reported to have died Friday after their vehicle struck a bomb in Zabul province in southern Afghanistan.

Two other soldiers were killed and nine were wounded Thursday after a suicide bomber blew himself up near a U.S. foot patrol in a crowded bazaar in the village of Hutal, in Maiwand district.

The rise in deaths comes as the United States is preparing to send up to 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, to reinforce the 32,000 soldiers already in country. Most of these troops will be deployed to Kandahar, Helmand and Zabul provinces in southern Afghanistan, where they will bolster forces made up primarily of British, Canadian, Dutch and soldiers from other NATO countries, according to ISAF officials.

Violence by the Taliban, al-Qaida and other militant groups in Afghanistan is at an all-time high, and 2008 was the deadliest year for U.S. and other foreign troops since the U.S.-led coalition ousted the fundamentalist Taliban regime in 2001 . . .

According to icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks U.S. and allied fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan, 155 U.S. soldiers and 139 troops from other countries died in Afghanistan in 2008.

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59899