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Six killed in Afghan ambush

This is the deadliest year for U.S. troops since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Militants ambushed and killed six U.S. troops walking in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan - the most lethal attack in a year that has been the deadliest for the U.S. military here since the 2001 invasion.

The number of U.S. deaths in Afghanistan this year mirrors the record toll in Iraq. Both conflicts have seen an increase in troop levels this year that has put more soldiers in harm's way, including those killed Friday while returning from a meeting with village elders in Nuristan province. Militants wielding rocket-propelled grenades killed the six Americans and three Afghan soldiers. Eight U.S. troops were wounded.

"They were attacked from several enemy positions at the same time," Lt. Col. David Accetta, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force and the U.S. military, said Saturday. "It was a complex ambush."

The deaths bring the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year to at least 101, according to an Associated Press count, surpassing the 93 troops killed in 2005. At least 87 died last year. The toll echoes Iraq, where U.S. military deaths this year surpassed 850, also a record.

Launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the war in Afghanistan quickly ousted al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and his Taliban protectors and appeared to have been a swift military victory.

But insurgent attacks - advanced ambushes and suicide and roadside bombs - have risen sharply the past two years, and analysts say the counterinsurgency battle U.S. and NATO forces now face will take a decade or more to win.

U.S. forces have two combat brigades - more than 8,000 troops - in eastern Afghanistan this year, up from one last year. The United States has about 25,000 forces in Afghanistan today - 15,000 under NATO and 10,000 under the U.S.-led coalition.

More than 5,800 people, mostly militants, have died due to insurgency-related violence this year, also a record, anAP count shows.

Anthony Cordesman, a U.S. military expert, said in a report that the average number of attacks in Afghanistan each month has risen 30 percent this year, from 425 in 2006 to 548 this year.

He labeled the Afghan conflict a "war of attrition that can last 15 or more years" that militants can win simply by outlasting U.S. and NATO efforts.

"As in Vietnam, tactical victory can easily become irrelevant," he wrote in a report for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

[Last modified November 11, 2007, 02:39:18]