KABUL, Afghanistan — Six U.S. soldiers were killed in a 48-hour period ending Sunday, their deaths coming on the heels of the most lethal month for U.S. and Western troops since the start of the war nearly eight years ago, military officials said.
Three other Western soldiers also died over the weekend, according to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. One was identified as a French soldier killed Saturday in a firefight outside Kabul, the capital; the other two were Canadians killed in the south.
The spike in combat casualties comes as NATO troops are engaged in a push to ensure that Afghanistan’s presidential election can be held in reasonable safety. Voters also will choose provincial assemblies in the nationwide balloting scheduled for Aug. 20.
Western officials view the vote as key to the effort to bolster the legitimacy of Afghanistan’s central government, which has been weakened by a virulent insurgency and plagued by allegations of corruption and inefficiency.
Three of the American deaths came Saturday in a roadside bombing in Kandahar province, in southern Afghanistan. Most of the U.S. forces in the south are concentrated in neighboring Helmand province, where Marines have seized a large swath of previously insurgent-held territory.
Many newly arriving U.S. troops are being deployed in Kandahar province, where their tasks include dangerous patrols in Kandahar city, the main urban hub of the country’s volatile south.
The other three U.S. service members were killed Sunday in Wardak province, west of Kabul. U.S. military officials said their convoy first struck a roadside bomb and then came under small-arms fire by insurgents. Such coordinated attacks — combining an initial explosion and a follow-up ambush — have increasingly become a hallmark of the insurgents operating in the country’s eastern sector. Many are said to be under the command of insurgent leaders based in Pakistan’s tribal belt.
