Deaths Mark Grim Afghan, Iraq Milestones

Afghan President Hamid Karzai offer prayers during a service held for victims of Tuesday's suicide bombing at the Eidgah mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 9, 2007. The suicide attack in northern Afghanistan earlier this week killed 59 schoolchildren and wounded 96 others, the Education Ministry said Friday. In total, at least 75 people were killed, including several parliamentarians. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool) (Rafiq Maqbool - AP)

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 mirror 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 six deaths brings 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. About 87 died last year. The toll echoes the situation in Iraq, where U.S. military deaths this year surpassed 850, also a record.

Launched in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror 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 last two years, and analysts say the counterinsurgency battle U.S. and NATO forces now face will take a decade or more to win.

Critics of the Bush administration say the Pentagon turned its attention away from Afghanistan during the build-up to the invasion in Iraq, leaving the military with too few resources here to back up that initial victory with an adequate security presence.

Though attacks in Iraq have dropped in recent months, U.S. troops there have also faced a rising number of suicide and roadside bombs since the 2003 invasion, known as asymmetric attacks in military circles.

Seth Jones, an expert on Afghanistan at the Washington-based RAND Corp., said the power of the U.S. military has forced insurgent groups into relying on such bombings.

"It's an irony that the United States far and away has the most powerful military in the world," said Jones. "I think the current levels of attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan show, however, that the key vulnerability to the United States both in Afghanistan and Iraq is the asymmetric attacks."

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

Accetta said U.S. forces this year have pushed into new areas that traditionally have been militant safe havens.