Death toll rising amid growing violence
Four American soldiers working with the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan were killed by a bomb on Wednesday, while another died in a separate attack in the southern part of the country. The deaths come just a day after three U.S. soldiers and five Afghan civilians were killed in a suicide attack in Kandahar, and are seemingly part of a larger wave of violence in Afghanistan. June saw the largest number of fatalities since the war began in 2001. In the past 24 hours, 11 NATO soldiers have been killed. “We are in the toughest part of this fight,” ISAF spokesman Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz told the BBC.