3 US-led troops killed in Afghanistan

Taliban insurgents have killed three US-led coalition soldiers in three separate attacks in southern and eastern Afghanistan, officials say.

A British soldier was killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defense said on Thursday. The unidentified soldier, from the Royal Logistic Corps, was on a routine patrol near Musa Qala in the province of Helmand on Wednesday when he was caught in the blast.

His death raises the number of British troops killed in Afghanistan to 118 since it joined the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.

Another soldier with NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed in eastern Afghanistan. The soldier died in an attack on a "combat post", an ISAF officer said adding that fewer than 10 militants had attacked the position with guns and rocket-propelled grenades before being repelled by troops.

The trooper's nationality was not released but most international soldiers in the east are US nationals.

In another incident, a foreign trooper in the east of the country, was killed "while conducting combat operations," according to AFP.

The deaths came as the US marked the September 11, 2001 attacks that led to the US-led coalition troops' occupation of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime and fight al-Qaeda insurgency.

While there are around 70,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, violence has mounted in the country year by year with about 50 percent more unrest in some areas this year as compared with 2007. PressTV