By ANTARA News,
Kabul : June was the deadliest month for foreign troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 fall of the Taliban and the second in a row in which casualties exceeded those in Iraq, official figures showed Tuesday.
Forty-nine soldiers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the separate US-led coalition died in combat, attacks or accidents in June, according to an AFP tally based on military statements.
June accounted for more than 40 percent of the 122 deaths of foreign soldiers in Afghanistan during 2008, according to the independent website icasualties.org.
Most were killed by roadside bombs hitting their convoys or patrols.
ISAF spokesman General Carlos Branco said the figures should be seen in the context of rising numbers of international forces fighting a resurgent Taliban militia.
“ISAF has much more soldiers now than in the past and is now going to places where it was not going before,” Branco told AFP.
By contrast, 31 soldiers including 29 Americans were killed in Iraq in June despite the fact that there are more than twice as many troops there as in Afghanistan, icasualties figures showed.
International casualties in Afghanistan also outstripped those in Iraq in May.
Foreign soldier deaths in Afghanistan hit 23 during May, 19 of them by hostile fire, while in Iraq the number of coalition soldiers killed dropped to 21 in that month, 17 of them in action.