Bomb Blast Kills 2 Nato Troops In Eastern Afghanistan

[News_Editor]

Bomb blast kills 2 NATO troops in eastern Afghanistan < br /> 2012-05-03 17:56:25 GMT+7 (ICT) KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (BNO NEWS) -- A roadside bomb exploded in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two coalition service members, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. A previously unreported death on Tuesday was also announced.ISAF said two of its service members were killed as a result of an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday. But because the multinational force defers the release of specific details to national authorities, no other details about the incident were released, including the exact location.The nationalities of the service members involved were also not immediately disclosed by ISAF, again per its policy. "It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities," ISAF said in a brief statement, giving no specific details. The alliance does also not report injuries.Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Defense reported a casualty in Afghanistan which had not been previously reported by ISAF. It said 43-year-old Captain Bruce K. Clark, of Spencerport, New York, died on Tuesday in Tarin Kowt, the capital of Uruzgan province.The U.S. Department of Defense gave no details about the cause of Clark's death, and it was unclear if he died in action or whether he died as a result of an accident or of natural causes. He was assigned to A Company, Troop Command at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas.The identity of a U.S. soldier who died in Zhari District of Kandahar province on Monday was also released on Wednesday. The U.S. Department of Defense identified the casualty as 23-year-old Sgt. Nicholas M. Dickhut, of Rochester, Minnesota, who died from wounds sustained when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire. He was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington.The deaths on Tuesday and Wednesday raise the number of coalition troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year to 137, according to official figures. A total of 566 ISAF troops were killed in Afghanistan in 2011, down from 711 in 2010. A majority of the fallen troops were American and were killed in the country's south, which is plagued by IED attacks on troops and civilians.There are currently more than 130,000 ISAF troops in Afghanistan, including some 90,000 U.S. troops and more than 9,500 British soldiers. U.S. President Barack Obama previously ordered a drawdown of 23,000 U.S. troops by the end of this summer, and foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

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