ROHAN SULLIVAN
Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan – Two more American troops were killed in Afghanistan on Tuesday, the military said, extending a spike of bloodshed into a second day and pushing the NATO losses in the country to 23 in just over a week.
The latest deaths came as insurgents step up bombings and other attacks ahead of a major NATO operation in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar that Washington hopes will turn the tide of the nearly 9-year-old war.
Monday was the bloodiest day this year for international forces in Afghanistan, when seven American troops, two Australians and a French Legionnaire were killed in five separate insurgent attacks in the south and east of the country. Two civilian contractors training police, an American and a Nepalese, also died in a brazen suicide attack Monday in the southern city of Kandahar.