3 US Deaths Make July Deadliest Month of Afghan War

(July 30) -- Six more U.S. service members have been killed in Afghanistan, making July the deadliest month for American forces in the entire 9-year-old war.

NATO issued a statement earlier today saying three members of the international force had been killed in two separate attacks with improvised explosive devices in southern Afghanistan a day earlier. It didn't identify the service members or give their nationalities, but unidentified U.S. officials told The Associated Press that those killed were Americans. They're currently notifying next of kin.

There's been no claim of responsibility for the bombings, and NATO didn't reveal whether the service members were killed on foot patrol or by a bomb embedded in a road on which they drove. Roadside bombs are the leading cause of death for foreign forces in Afghanistan, and most of them are believed to have been planted by the Taliban and its allies.

Then, later today, three more U.S. troops died. A NATO statement Friday said one service member died following an insurgent attack and two others were killed in a roadside bombing the same day in southern Afghanistan.

The deaths raise the July tally of U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan to 66, making this month the deadliest of the war since U.S. warplanes began bombing Afghanistan a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. For NATO as a whole, 86 foreign service members have been killed this month. June was the deadliest-ever month for the entire NATO force, with 104 deaths, including 60 Americans.

Tallies of U.S. and NATO deaths in Afghanistan have been compiled by the icasualties.org website and by the AP. The numbers of Afghan military and civilian deaths, as well as those of Taliban fighters, are more difficult to count.

The spike in deaths of foreign service members comes amid what a U.N. report last month described as an "alarming trend" of increased violence in Afghanistan, with a 94 percent increase in roadside bombs so far this year compared to 2009, and double the number of complex suicide attacks.

Part of the reason for the increase in attacks is that more international troops are on the ground in Afghanistan, engaging Taliban fighters more often, the report said. An additional 30,000 American troops have been deployed, and together with their NATO allies as well as Afghan soldiers and police, they're making contact with Taliban fighters more frequently.

Nearly 150,000 foreign troops are now in Afghanistan, though the U.S. has pledged to begin withdrawing its forces by this time next year.