KABUL - A coalition service member was killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan on New Year's Day, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.ISAF said the service member was killed as a result of an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in the country's south, but provided no other information about the attack.
The nationality of the service member was also not immediately disclosed. "It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities," an ISAF statement said.
Coalition casualties in Afghanistan have been rising sharply in recent years, with an overall coalition death toll of 709 in 2010, making it the deadliest year for international troops since the war began in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
The council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) eventually declared that the attacks of 9/11, which killed nearly 3,000 people from scores of countries, was considered an attack on all NATO nations. The NATO-backed war in Afghanistan aims to defeat the Taliban and other insurgent groups in the country.
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