A British soldier was shot dead in Afghanistan on Christmas Eve, the same day a US soldier died in a separate attack, officials said Thursday as international mortar fire killed four road workers. The Royal Marine, whose identity was not released, was killed Wednesday while trying to drive "enemy forces" from a compound in the southern province of Helmand, the British defence ministry said in a statement.
"The death of this Royal Marine is a tragic loss and coming so close to Christmas, this is particularly poignant," said the British military's spokeswoman in Helmand, Commander Paula Rowe. His death had already been announced by the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), under which the British troops are serving alongside those of nearly 40 other nations, but ISAF gave no details about the incident.
ISAF said Wednesday that another of its soldiers was killed in an attack in eastern Afghanistan. The US military confirmed Thursday the trooper was a US national. About 70,000 international soldiers are deployed in Afghanistan to help the government fight an insurgency led by the extremist Taliban, who ruled between 1996 and 2001.
Around 290 foreign soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan this year, the most violent of the seven-year-long insurgency, which began after a US-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001. Afghan police said meanwhile that cannon fire from a US military base in the north-eastern province of Kunar had killed four workers when it fell short of its target and hit a road construction compound.
The incident took place in Chawkay district on Wednesday, provincial police chief Abdul Jalal Jalal said. "Four road workers were killed and another four, including an engineer, were wounded," the head of the Unique Builders Construction company, named only Haseebullah, told AFP. A spokesman for the US military in Afghanistan, Colonel Greg Julian, could not confirm the incident but said he was looking into it.
Civilian casualties mistakenly caused by the international forces operating here anger Afghans who are increasingly concerned by the rising violence in their nation, already ruined by nearly three decades of war. Nearly 1,800 civilians were killed in insurgency-linked action in the first 10 months of this year, up 41 percent from last year, Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission said in a report Wednesday citing UN figures.
Most were caused by insurgents but Nato, US and Afghan security forces were responsible for nearly 700 deaths, it said, warning the killings were angering and alienating Afghans. In other violence, the US-led coalition announced separately that its soldiers had killed two militants and detained two suspects in operations Wednesday targeting the Taliban in Kapisa province north-east of Kabul.
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