4 US Soldiers Killed In Bomb Blast In Afghanistan:Kabul: Four U.S. soldiers were killed Saturday in Taliban-style explosion, NATO said, while the number of dead foreign soldiers in the Afghan war have risen closer to the 2,000 mark.NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said four were killed in attacks using improvised explosive devices, or IED, main weapon deployed by the Taliban, in their insurgency. ISAF spokeswomen confirmed the four were Americans. The incident occurred in southern Afghanistan, where war is at its fiercest, the ISAF statement said.
Death to bring the toll to 396 foreign soldiers who died during the war this year, compared with 520 for all of 2009. Calculation is based on the AFP, which are stored in the Web site icasualties.org puts the number of troops who have died since the beginning of the Afghan insurgency in 2001, 1964, with 1,204 of them Americans.
IEDs are the leading cause of death of foreign soldiers, according to military officials, who say the load of crude homemade bombs like the Taliban is growing to adapt to greater protection from external forces. U.S. and NATO have nearly 150,000 troops in Afghanistan, with a wave of additional 30,000 Americans who commanded U.S. president Barack Obama is almost fully deployed, most of them in the pockets of southern Kandahar and Helmand.
Obama said he would begin phasing out U.S. forces in the middle of next year, and Britain, which ranked second on the counter with the contingent in this country, wants to pull within five years. Conference in Kabul this week in Afghanistan's international backers approved a plan to its own forces in the country to assume security duties by the end of 2014, and the international military can leave.
Afghan army and police being trained by their international counterparts, planning to reach a total of 300000 at the end of this year. Afghan President Hamid Karzai pledge in his inaugural speech last November, when he began his second term as president, won the election, marred by massive fraud, largely in his favor.
His promise that the Afghan security forces will be sufficiently competent to work alone to ensure the country from Taliban attacks have been met with some skepticism that the numbers are more important than the ability to achieve the targets. Washington's top military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, expressed concern on Friday about the sanctuary in Pakistan, extremist groups blamed for attacks on Afghan targets.
Speaking to reporters in New Delhi during a visit to the region, Mullen spoke on the Haqqani network, believed to be based in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area, because "the most lethal network" facing the US-led coalition in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has long faced accusations that it provides shelter for goups such as Haqqani, who finance, personnel, plan and carry out attacks in Afghanistan. Afghan government urges Pakistan to take action against groups which he said operate with impunity from the territory of Pakistan, with the tacit support of the State Intelligence Service and armed elements. Two U.S. lawmakers this week proposed a bill calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Pakistan, where they said they were conducting covert operations against the militants.
"We know that American troops are already operating in a mystery inside Pakistan's territory without the approval of Congress," Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich said Friday, pointing to reports of the United States is stepping up its presence. Joining Kucinich on the bill was Ron Paul, Texas Republican, who failed in a bid for the presidency in 2008.
Paul says that the U.S. military has "significantly increase" its operations in Pakistan, without giving figures. The Pentagon says that only a small number of U.S. soldiers are working in Pakistan, mostly special forces tasked with Pakistani troops along the border with Afghanistan. These U.S. forces are not officially involved in combat operations.
