Roadside bomb attacks killed three Afghan civilians and a Nato soldier, as well as seriously wounded a child, in southern Afghanistan on Monday, the military said. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are the Taliban's chief weapon in their nine-year insurgency against the Western-backed Afghan government and more than 152,000 US-led foreign troops based in the country.
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said an IED attack killed three Afghan civilians and seriously wounded a child in the Qalat district of southern Zabul province on Monday. Thousands of Afghan civilians have died in rebel attacks and military operations since remnants of the Taliban regime launched an insurgency after the 2001 US-led invasion brought down their Islamist regime.
According to a UN report, more than 1,200 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2010, an increase of 25 percent on the same period in 2009. ISAF said an IED attack killed a Nato soldier in southern Afghanistan, but declined to release any further details. The Taliban are strong in the south, an area where US-led troops are focusing their counter-insurgency push designed to deal the Taliban a decisive blow.
Monday's death took the number of foreign troops killed in 2010 to 575, according to an AFP toll based on the independent website icasualties.org. This year is already the deadliest so far in the conflict, which has killed more than 2,140 international soldiers since the 2001 US-led invasion to bring down the Taliban regime and replace it with a Western-backed administration.
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