4 ISAF troops killed in Afghanistan

A member of the Afghan army who acted as a prayer leader for troops has shot dead a British soldier in the year's first insider attack, according to officials in the region.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Militants killed six Americans, including a young female diplomat, and an Afghan doctor in a pair of attacks in Afghanistan on Saturday. It was the deadliest day for the United States in the war in eight months.

Three NATO-led service members died following an insurgent attack Friday in eastern Afghanistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said.

A bomb attack killed a US service member in Afghanistan, NATO said on Sunday, doubling the number of American soldiers killed in the country this year compared with 2008, according to an AFP tally.The NATO-run International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the soldier died from an improvised explosive device (IED), the biggest killer of foreign troops in the eight-year battle to contain a Taliban insurgency."An ISAF service member from the United States died following an IED strike in southern Afghanistan Saturday," the force said in a statement.

The number of foreign troops to die this year in Afghanistan has reached 600, by far the highest annual toll in nine years of war despite tentative reconciliation efforts with the Taliban.The milestone was reached after a NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announcement that a soldier had been killed in an insurgent attack in the east on Sunday.Another NATO soldier was killed in a bomb blast in the Taliban heartland of southern Afghanistan on the same day.

Seven soldiers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, the military said."Seven International Security Assistance Force service members died following an improvised explosive device attack in southern Afghanistan today," ISAF said in a statement.It did not say which country they were from, which area they were killed in or give further details of the incident, in line with policy.

A bomb killed three NATO soldiers in southern Afghanistan, the joint force said Sunday, bringing to eight the number of foreign soldiers killed in the country in the most deadly weekend this year.On Saturday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said five of its troops had been killed in a suicide attack at an Afghan army base in the eastern province of Nangarhar, in which four Afghan soldiers were also killed.

NATO troops in Afghanistan said on Tuesday they had killed a Saudi described as an "Al-Qaeda senior leader" who was their number two most-wanted insurgent in the country.The US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said Abu Hafs al-Najdi, also known as Abdul Ghani, was killed in an air strike in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan, on April 13.ISAF said he was responsible for coordinating "numerous high-profile attacks" and that they had been hunting him for four years.