Blast kills NATO soldier in southern Afghanistan on New Year's Eve

[News_Editor]

Blast kills NATO soldier in southern Afghanistan on New Year's Eve

2010-12-31 19:32:34 GMT+7 (ICT)

KABUL (BNO NEWS) -- A coalition service member was killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan on New Year's Eve, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

ISAF said the service member was killed as a result of an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in the country's south, but provided no other information about the attack.

The nationality of the service member was also not immediately disclosed. "It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities," an ISAF statement said.

Coalition casualties in Afghanistan have been rising sharply this year, with around 90 fatalities in July alone, making it the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the war began on October 7, 2001 in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

The council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) eventually declared that the attacks of 9/11, which killed nearly 3,000 people from scores of countries, was considered an attack on all NATO nations. The NATO-backed war in Afghanistan aims to defeat the Taliban and other insurgent groups in the country.

So far this year, at least 710 coalition service members have been killed in Afghanistan. Most of them were American and died in Afghanistan's war-torn southern region. In 2009, the total death toll stood at 521.

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