- KABUL (Reuters) -- Four U.S.
military personnel have been killed in action in Afghanistan, one of the
biggest losses for American forces since the fall of the Taliban which
comes amid signs of a growing militant insurgency in the south.
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- A brief statement from the U.S. military in Kabul said
on Saturday that the four service members were from the Combined Joint
Special Operations Task Force, Afghanistan, suggesting that it was special
forces troops who were killed.
-
- A spokeswoman said she had no more details of the incident,
which took to 90 the number of fatalities suffered by the Americans in
Afghanistan, 56 of them in combat.
-
- The service members died in the southern province of
Zabul, where remnants from the ousted Taliban have staged a series of attacks
in recent months.
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- More than 700 people have died in violence since last
August, most of it blamed on Taliban and al Qaeda fighters bent on disrupting
landmark elections due to be held in September.
-
- They have declared a "jihad", or holy war against
foreign and Afghan troops and aid organisations. The U.S. military has
admitted that an insurgency concentrated in the south and east of the country
has gathered pace in the last two months.
-
- Also on Saturday, seven Afghan soldiers and four Taliban
guerrillas were killed in clashes in the southern province of Helmand,
according to local officials.
-
- Around 20 government troops were also wounded in what
appeared to be four simultaneous and coordinated attacks by suspected Taliban
on official targets.
-
- Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul used to be strongholds of
the hardline Islamic Taliban before it was ousted by U.S.-led forces in
late 2001.
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- There are some 20,000 U.S.-led soldiers in Afghanistan
hunting remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda.
-
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