A total of eight soldiers serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan were in the war-torn Asian nation on Saturday, making it the deadliest day this year for the international coalition force.
In all the three cases, the coalition force did not identify the deceased soldiers by name or reveal their nationalities in accordance with its policy of leaving casualty identification to the relevant national authorities.
In a statement issued early Sunday, the ISAF said that one of its soldiers was killed in an insurgent attack in northern Afghanistan late on Saturday.
In two other statements issued Saturday, the international coalition force had revealed the deaths of another seven of its service personnel in two separate incidents of violence, one in western Afghanistan and the other in the south of the Asian nation.
According to one statement, two of ISAF service members were killed in western Afghanistan on Saturday after an Afghan National Army soldier turned his against them. The coalition force said an investigation has been launched into the incident.
Earlier on Saturday, the ISAF had reported the deaths of five of its service members in an improvised explosive device attack in southern Afghanistan. Although the coalition force did not revel the nationalities of the five deceased soldiers, media reports indicated that they were Americans.
According to ICasualties.org, an independent website that monitors military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, the latest casualties take the total number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year to 50. US troops top the list with 41 deaths.
Currently, there are over 100,000 foreign troops from more than 48 countries in Afghanistan to contain a resurgent Taliban in the war-ravaged South Asian country. The US remains the single biggest contributor to the ISAF, with 68,000 soldiers on the ground.
The US and other allied nations involved in the Afghan mission are currently making serious efforts to get Afghan security forces ready and capable of handling the country's security before the planned withdrawal of coalition troops by end 2014.
ISAF has already begun the process of entrusting security responsibilities of several provinces to Afghan forces. However, there are wide concerns about the ability of Afghan security forces to counter Taliban insurgency without the same level of foreign military assistance and presence.
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