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Kabul (AFP) July 28, 2010 Two Italian soldiers were killed in a bomb attack Wednesday in the west of Afghanistan, the NATO-led force said. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement the two were killed by an improvised explosive device, the Taliban's weapon of choice, but did not give the location of the attack. "I can confirm they were Italian soldiers," an ISAF spokesman told AFP. In Rome, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said the two were bomb disposal experts and a Defence Ministry statement said they had defused an improvised explosive device but were killed in an explosion caused by another one. In May two Italian soldiers with the 327th Engineer Regiment from Turin were killed when their convoy was hit by a bomb near Herat, the main city in the west of Afghanistan. Italy has 3,300 troops in Afghanistan with ISAF and heads the western regional command based in Herat. With the latest deaths 26 Italian soldiers or diplomats have died in Afghanistan since 2004 in attacks, accidents or of natural causes. A total of 404 foreign troops have been killed in military operations in Afghanistan since the start of this year, according to an AFP tally based on that kept by the icasualties.org website. Eighty-two soldiers have died so far in July, compared with 102 in June, which was the worst month for foreign military casualties since the end of 2001. The Taliban-led insurgency has gained intensity in the past four years and spread its attacks to most of the country despite the deployment of tens of thousands more foreign troops, in particular American forces. Easy to make and plant, IEDs are the main killer of foreign and Afghan troops, and of Afghan civilians.
related report NATO's international Security Assistance Force (ISAF) did not reveal the circumstances of the death, or the nationality of the soldier. It said that the incident took place on Tuesday. Southern Afghanistan is the most volatile region of the Taliban-led insurgency, which is nearing the end of its ninth year. Deaths of foreign soldiers have spiked in recent months as deployment of US and NATO troops nears its peak of 150,000, taking the fight to the Taliban in a counter-insurgency strategy aimed at speeding the end of the war.
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