KABUL, June 21, (AFP): Bomb attacks and a helicopter crash killed nine NATO soldiers on Monday in southern Afghanistan, where thousands of US-led troops are sharpening an ambitious campaign to flush out Taleban militants.
In the deadliest incident, three Australian commandos and a US soldier were killed when their helicopter crashed in Kandahar province, the single worst loss of life for the Australian military in the nearly nine-year Afghan war.
Another two NATO troops, including an American, were killed in separate bomb explosions elsewhere in the south, the spiritual home of the Taleban militia that is fighting an increasingly deadly insurgency against Western troops.
Three more American soldiers were killed in other incidents, a spokesman for the NATO-lead International Security Assistance Force told AFP.
One US soldier died following a small-arms attack by militants in the south and two others died after a roadside bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan.
The incidents brought to 64 the number of NATO soldiers killed in the Afghan conflict this month, and to 281 the number so far this year, according to an AFP tally.
The deadliest month for the Western coalition was August last year, when 77 foreign soldiers were killed. Last year, 520 NATO troops died — their deadliest annual total yet.
Much of southern Afghanistan is blighted by the Taleban insurgency, now in its deadliest phase since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the hardline Islamist regime and installed a Western-backed administration.
The US military has warned that casualties will inevitably mount as foreign forces build up their campaign to oust the militants from Kandahar, the Taleban heartland and a hotbed of bombings, assassinations and lawlessness.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, who visited Afghanistan earlier this month, said British troops would leave “as soon as they (Afghans) are able to take care and take security for their own country”.
Australia, which said Monday’s helicopter crash was not caused by enemy fire, also mourned.
“This is a tragic day for Australia and the Australian Defence Force,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told parliament. “This is a very heavy price to pay.”
It was the second helicopter crash to kill NATO troops this month. Taleban militants killed four US soldiers on June 9 when they shot down a helicopter in Helmand.
Up to 26 Taleban suspects have been freed from jails in Afghanistan as part of efforts to persuade Islamist insurgents to make peace, Afghan and US officials said Monday.
The prisoners included men detained by the US military at Bagram Air Base, two in police custody in Kabul and six from a small prison in the eastern province Khost, the officials told AFP.
“They were detained for suspected links to armed opposition groups,” said Nasrullah Stanikzai, advisor to President Hamid Karzai and a member of a government committee assigned to review the cases of the prisoners.
“We reviewed their cases one by one. But there was not enough evidence against them,” Stanikzai said.
Stanikzai said 12 of the men were freed from a US-run jail at Bagram, the biggest NATO and US military base in Afghanistan.
Michael Gottlieb, a civilian US official dealing with prisoners, however, said 18 had been freed from Bagram after a landmark peace conference on June 2.
The release came after hundreds of tribal elders, religious leaders and other Afghan notables called at the “peace jirga” for ways to get insurgents to lay down their weapons.