'Increased operations behind high death toll in Afghanistan'

Intensified military operations against the Taliban are behind a surge in troop deaths in Afghanistan, Nato said yesterday, as the alliance announced the 93rd fatality in a record month for casualties.

Nato's International Security Assistance Force said three more foreign soldiers had died in Taliban attacks - two US personnel killed in gunfights yesterday and one from an unidentified nation in a bomb blast on Saturday.

The deaths bring to 313 the total number of soldiers to have died in Afghanistan this year. The number killed in June alone stands at 93, according to an AFP count, by far the deadliest monthly toll since the war began. However, an ISAF spokesman said the toll was a measure of success as the alliance takes the fight to the Taliban with the deployment of thousands more troops into the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.

"With the build-up of the additional reinforcements we have been able to confront the insurgency and Taliban in areas where they have not been challenged for years," Brigadier General Josef Blotz said.