4 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan – Insurgents shot down a NATO helicopter in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday and killed four U.S. soldiers while another coalition service member died in a roadside bombing. The attacks made the first nine days of June one of the deadliest spans this year for Western troops mired in the nearly nine-year war against the Taliban insurgency.

The five coalition service members were killed in the country’s volatile Helmand province, part of the Taliban’s heartland in the south and a key focus of President Barack Obama’s troop surge aimed at crippling the insurgency and forcing it to negotiate an end to the war. So far this month, 29 coalition troops have been killed in Afghanistan, a rate of more than three deaths a day.

Nineteen of those deaths have involved U.S. soldiers, according to icasualties.org, a website that tracks U.S. and NATO military deaths in Afghanistan.

The latest troop deaths come as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, speaking in London, warned that the U.S. and its Western allies in Afghanistan will have to show signs of gaining the upper hand against militants by the end of the year or risk losing popular backing for the war.

“All of us, for our publics, are going to have to show by the end of the year that our strategy is on the track, making some headway,” Gates said, as he prepared for meetings later this week in Brussels with defense ministers from NATO-allied nations.

Defeating the Taliban in its strongholds in southern Afghanistan is a crucial component of Washington’s strategy against the insurgency. U.S. commanders are readying a major offensive this summer against militants in the southern city of Kandahar, the Taliban’s former headquarters.