Roadside bombs kills 4 NATO troops in Afghanistan’s volatile south and east

Roadside bombs kills 4 NATO troops in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — Roadside bombs killed four NATO troops in Afghanistan, the international force said Saturday, adding to a violent summer as coalition forces step up patrols in the Taliban-dominated south.

An American service member was killed by a blast in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, while another coalition soldier, whose nationality was not released, died in a roadside bomb in a southern province, NATO said. It gave no other details.

Two members of the multinational force died in a single explosion Friday in the south. The NATO-led force gave no details but said one of the troops killed was American.

Roadside bombs planted by insurgents are one of the leading killers of both international troops and civilians in Afghanistan.

To counter the threat, the U.S. is sending $3 billion worth of detection equipment and bomb-resistant vehicles to Afghanistan, the Defense Department said earlier this month. The equipment includes tethered surveillance blimps to give troops a bird’s eye view of certain areas, plus unmanned surveillance planes and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.

Last month was the deadliest of the nearly 9-year-old war for international troops, with 103 killed. So far in July, 52 international troops have died, 39 of them American.