Bombs kill four NATO soldiers in 24 hours

KABUL — A bomb attack has killed an Estonian soldier in Afghanistan, bringing to four the number of NATO personnel killed in the country's southern battlefield in 24 hours, the military said Wednesday.

At least eight Afghan police and soldiers, whose training is at the core of a sweeping new US strategy to turn around the eight-year Taliban insurgency and defeat Al-Qaeda, were also killed in separate incidents, officials said.

An improvised-explosive device (IED) killed the Estonian during a foot patrol Tuesday, said Captain Roy Hermkens, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Another IED killed a US soldier, while two British soldiers, together with two Afghan soldiers, were killed in a motorcycle suicide attack in the south on Tuesday, Hermkens told AFP.

London earlier announced the British deaths following a suspected suicide bomb attack near Sangin in southern province Helmand.

ISAF had also earlier announced the US death. The makeshift bombs, usually planted at the side of a road, are the biggest killers of foreign soldiers in Afghanistan and the Taliban's weapon of choice.

This year is on record at the deadliest for foreign troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime.

At least 495 foreign soldiers have died so far this year, including 305 Americans -- almost double the 155 US troops killed last year -- according to the independent icasualties.org website.

US President Barack Obama has ordered 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan as part of a new strategy to reverse the Taliban momentum and focus on training Afghan soldiers and police to take charge of responsibility for security.

In the usually peaceful western province of Herat, near the Iran border, a bomb attack killed at least four Afghan policemen late Tuesday.

"Abdul Karim, the police chief of Kushk district in Herat province, was killed with three policemen," the interior ministry said.

However, Ikramudin Yawar, police commander for western Afghanistan, said the district chief and four other police were killed when the bomb ripped through their patrol vehicle.

Ambushes killed two Afghan soldiers separately in the east and southern province Kandahar, the Taliban spiritual capital, the defence ministry said.