Four US soldiers killed in bomb attack in south Afghanistan

A bomb killed four US soldiers in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, American and Afghan officials said. They were the latest casualties in a 12-year conflict that shows no signs of slowing down despite a drawdown in foreign forces.

The US-led international military coalition says four of its service members were killed in the south, and a military official confirmed all were Americans killed by an “improvised explosive device.”

Their deaths bring the toll among foreign forces to 132 this year, of which 102 are from the United States. At least 2,146 members of the US military have died in Afghanistan as a result of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to an Associated Press count. They are part of a total of nearly 3,390 coalition forces that have died during the conflict.

They were killed on the eve of the 12th anniversary of the October 7, 2001 invasion, which led to an insurgency that shows no signs of abatement and a war that has become largely forgotten in the United States and among its coalition allies despite continued casualties suffered by their forces on the ground.

Javed Faisal, a spokesman for the governor of Kandahar, confirmed the four Americans were killed in the province by an IED. He had no further details.

NATO said in a statement that the four were killed during an operation in the south alongside Afghan troops, but did not provide any further details or their nationalities. The NATO official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly.

IEDs, which include remotely detonated roadside bombs and improvised landmines, are one of the top killers of Afghan and foreign soldiers as well as civilians.