KABUL, Afghanistan — Six U.S. soldiers were killed in a 48-hour period ending Sunday, their deaths coming on the heels of the most lethal month for U.S. and Western troops since the start of the war, military officials said.
Three other Western troops also died over the weekend, according to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. One of them was identified as a French soldier killed Saturday in a firefight outside Kabul, the capital; the other two were Canadians killed in the south.
The U.N.’s representative in Afghanistan, meanwhile, called for peace talks with the Taliban’s top leadership, saying deals with local militant commanders as proposed by Britain’s foreign secretary would not be enough to end the violence.
The spike in combat casualties comes as NATO troops are engaged in a push to ensure that Afghanistan’s presidential election can be held in reasonable safety. Voters also will choose provincial assemblies in the nationwide balloting scheduled for Aug. 20.
Three of the American deaths came in a roadside bombing in Kandahar province, in southern Afghanistan, on Saturday. Most of the U.S. forces in the south are concentrated in neighboring Helmand province, where U.S. Marines have seized a large swath of previously insurgent-held territory.
But many newly arriving U.S. troops are being deployed in Kandahar province, where their tasks include dangerous patrols in Kandahar city, the main urban hub of the country’s volatile south.
The other three U.S. troops were killed Sunday in Wardak province, to the west of Kabul. U.S. military officials said their convoy first struck a roadside bomb and then came under small-arms fire by insurgents.
Such coordinated attacks — combining an initial explosion and a follow-up ambush — have increasingly become a hallmark of the insurgents operating in the country’s eastern sector.
U.S. troops say militants are now using bombs with little or no metal in them, making them even harder to detect. Militants are also planting multiple bombs on top of one another and planting several bombs in one small area.
The American presence in Wardak was beefed up early this year after a series of attacks by militants helped create the impression that Taliban fighters were tightening a noose around the capital.
Western military officials insisted that that was largely an illusion and that Kabul itself was in no danger of being overrun, but they acknowledged that travel on the main highway through Wardak, at the capital’s doorstep, had become extremely unsafe for ordinary Afghans and security forces alike.
The surge of deaths over the weekend came just after military officials reported that July had been the worst month since the war’s start in terms of troop fatalities. Seventy-four Western soldiers were killed, including 43 Americans, the highest monthly tally for both since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban.
The call by Kai Eide, the U.N.’s chief in Afghanistan, for talks is another indication that parts of the international community favor reaching out to the top echelons of the radical Islamist movement in their attempts to bring peace.
“If you want relevant results, you have to talk to those who are relevant. If you want important results, you have to talk to those who are important. If you only have a partial reconciliation process, you will have partial results,” Eide said.
President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly called for talks with Taliban leaders on condition that the militants accept Afghanistan’s constitution and renounce violence. Karzai has even personally guaranteed safe passage for Taliban leader Mullah Omar if he attends such talks.
Omar, who is believed to be hiding in Pakistan, has publicly dismissed the overtures, calling Karzai an American puppet and saying no talks can happen while foreign troops are in the country.
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