Deadly Day for NATO in Afghanistan: 9 Occupation Soldiers Killed

21/09/2010 NATO occupation troops in Afghanistan have witnessed on Tuesday one of the deadliest incidents since the US-led invasion, with nine soldiers killed when their helicopter crashed in the south of the country.

The overall death toll of occupation forces has exceeded last year's record. The incident brings to 529 the number of troops killed so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on the count kept by icasualties.org, surpassing the previous record of 521 deaths in 2009.

But how the crash happened? Was it a missile or a technical problem?

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said "the cause of the crash is under investigation," adding: "there are no reports of enemy fire in the area."

ISAF also said that another NATO soldier was injured, along with an Afghan soldier and a US civilian, but it did not identify the nationalities of the dead troops and did not give further details on where the crash took place.

After only nine months, 2010 has now become the deadliest year of the long war.
June was the deadliest month of the war for coalition troops, with 103 fatalities, according to an AFP count based on the independent icasualties.org figures.

A total of 2,097 occupation troops have now been killed since the invasion of 2001.

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