The Isaf spokesman General Gunter Katz said Saturday that Nato’s troops casualties “will not have an effect on our overall campaign” in Afghanistan.
His comment comes after, five US soldiers were killed by a bomb in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, capping off one of the bloodiest weeks for foreign forces this year in the country.
"Well, it is with deep regret that I have to inform you that today five American soldiers died following an attack with an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan,” the Reuters quoting Gunter Katz as saying.
“It was a very difficult week for us, like I said, every soldier who dies here in Afghanistan is one too many. But again this will not have an effect on our overall campaign; we stay committed and will stay committed in this country to support the Afghans, also in the future,”
he said.
In the last one week, nineteen US troops have been killed in three air crashes and Saturday's bombing. Three British soldiers were also killed on April 30 by a roadside bomb in the southern province of Helmand.
The Kandahar local officials have said that the Saturday’s attack happened when, the soldiers' vehicle struck an IED in Maiwand district of the province.
The death brings the number of US troops killed in the Afghan war this year to 41.
Last week, the US President Barack Obama had said that the “the war is winding down in Afghanistan and we’re having success in defeating al-Qaeda core.”
Speaking at a White House news conference, Obama said: “we're winding down the war in Afghanistan, we're having success defeating al-Qaeda core, and we’ve kept the pressure up on all these transnational terrorist networks.”
“We've transferred detention authority in Afghanistan, the idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried that is contrary to who we are, it's contrary to our interests and it needs to stop,” Obama said.
There are around 100,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan helping over 300,000 Afghan security forces fight insurgency.