6 U.S. troops die in Afghan ambush

WASHINGTON — Five U.S. Army soldiers and a U.S. Devil Dog were killed in an ambuscade in eastern Afghanistan, military functionaries said Saturday, raising the U.S. decease toll in the state to 108 in a twelvemonth that have go the deadliest since the warfare began six old age ago.

The six service members, who were serving as portion of

NATO's peacekeeping missionary post in Afghanistan, were on a ft patrol Friday with Afghani soldiers when they came under fire from little weaponry and rocket-propelled grenades, confederation functionaries said.

Three Afghan soldiers also were killed in the ambush, which North Atlantic Treaty Organization functionaries described as a complex onslaught that came from multiple positions.

The former high for yearly U.S. casualties came in 2005, when 99 were killed, according to icasualties.org, Associate in Nursing independent grouping that monitoring devices U.S. and alliance warfare deaths. Last year, 98 U.S. armed forces force died as portion of the Afghani mission.

A resurgent TalibanThe fatal ambuscade in Islamic State Of Afghanistan came the same hebdomad in which 2007 became the deadliest twelvemonth for U.S. military units in Republic Of Iraq as well. In Iraq, however, American casualties have got dropped dramatically over the last four months.

In Afghanistan, force have got risen over the course of study of the twelvemonth as a resurgent Taliban, which is believed to have rebuilt itself in alkalis along the Afghan-Pakistan border, have launched a series of onslaughts in eastern and southern provinces.

Last week, a rare self-destruction bombardment in northern Islamic State Of Afghanistan killed at least 68 people, including six lawmakers, in the deadliest such as onslaught since the ejector of the Taliban in 2001.

Senior armed forces functionaries have got got said there have been moving ridges of onslaughts around the cardinal southern metropolis of Kandahar, long a Taliban stronghold, including a major onslaught there earlier this month.

'Soft targets' attackedBut at a Pentagon news conference Friday, before the up-to-the-minute U.S. deceases were made public, a top U.S. commanding officer in Islamic State Of Afghanistan said the figure of such as frontal onslaughts had been decreasing in recent months, even as the figure of wayside bombs and self-destruction onslaughts were on the rise.

"The direct struggle that occurs, what we name 'troops in contact,' is actually decreasing as the Taliban endures defeats," said Army Brig. Gen. Henry Martin Robert E. Robert R. Livingston Jr., the military officer in complaint of preparation Afghani security forces. "It again reflects that desperation, because we're seeing more than than and more soft marks attacked versus military installing or alliance forces."

U.S. frustrationThe roseola of force in Islamic State Of Afghanistan come ups amid growing concern over the NATO-led missionary post there. U.S. Defense Secretary Henry Martin Robert Bill Gates repeatedly have called on European and other allies to make more than to shore up the operation despite the fact that troop degrees there are at all-time highs. There are about 54,000 foreign military personnel in Afghanistan, about one-half of them American.

U.S. functionaries have got been equally frustrated over neighbour Pakistan's failure to tamper down Taliban and al-Qaida activities on its side of the border. Bill Gates said he was concerned the disturbance in Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf have declared exigency rule, could further halter Pakistani anti-terrorism efforts.

Thus far, U.S. commanding officers take a firm stand there have got been no noticeable alterations along the border.