Five US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan today, Nato said, as the number of Americans to die in the war in the past four days climbed to 22. Four soldiers were killed in eastern Afghanistan in a Taliban-style bomb attack, Natos International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. The fifth died in an insurgent attack in the south of the country, where the insurgency is at its fiercest, it said in a separate statement. A spokesman confirmed that all the dead were Americans. The deaths bring to 485 the total number of foreign troops killed in the Afghan war this year, compared to 521 for all of 2009, according to a tally based on that kept by the independent icasualties.org website. The deaths come a day after eight Nato troops seven of them American were killed in bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan. The eighth soldier was a 20-year-old Estonian who died of his injuries on Monday after insurgents set off an improvised explosive device (IED) in Nad-e-Ali in Helmand province. Estonia has a 160-strong contingent within the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, part of a troop deployment of almost 150,000 under Nato and US command. It was the eighth Estonian soldier killed since the Baltic state first deployed troops to Afghanistan in 2003 after the US-led overthrow of the Taliban regime. Canada lost its 152nd soldier to die as a result of the Afghan war when a corporal died from injuries sustained from an IED on August 22. He died in hospital in Germany, the military said.
