A helicopter crash killed nine troops from the Nato-led force in Afghanistan's south today, making 2010 the deadliest year of the war for foreign troops just as attention turns to plans to start withdrawing them.
Violence is at its worst across Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted by US-backed Afghan forces in 2001, with military and civilian casualties at record levels.
The crash came soon after one of the deadliest days of the year on Saturday, when the Taliban launched scores of attacks across the country in a bid to disrupt a parliamentary election.
The election was being closely watched in Washington ahead of US president Barack Obama's planned war strategy review in December, which will likely examine the pace and scale of US troop withdrawals after nine years of war.
Mr Obama's Democrats also face difficult mid-term Congressional elections in November amid sagging public support for the war and record troop casualties in Afghanistan will likely only make their task harder.
Few details were immediately available about the crash in Afghanistan's volatile south, the heartland of the Taliban.
US and British troops form the largest contingents in the area. However, there was no immediate indication of the nationality of the dead troops and a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said more information would be released later.
"There are no reports of enemy fire in the area," ISAF said.
One ISAF service member, an Afghan soldier and a US civilian were wounded in the crash and were taken to hospital for treatment, the body said in a statement.
The deaths take the toll so far in 2010 to at least 529, according to monitoring website iCasualties.org. Last year, the previous deadliest of the war, 521 foreign troops were killed.
At least 2,097 foreign troops have been killed since the war began, about 60 per cent of them American.
Violence in recent months has soared to its highest levels since the Taliban were toppled by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001.
The Taliban have spread the insurgency out of their heartland in the south and east into once relatively peaceful areas in the north and west.
At the same time, foreign troops have been increasing the reach and scale of operations to seek out the Taliban, especially in Helmand and Kandahar provinces in the south, and US commanders have warned of more tough times ahead.
There are almost 150,000 foreign troops fighting a growing Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, supporting about 300,000 Afghan security forces. Mr Obama ordered in an extra 30,000 troops late last year, the last units of which arrived this month.
Saturday's flawed election, in which widespread fraud and violence were reported, has only underscored the challenges facing US and other Nato nations as they decide how long they will keep troops in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan's endemic corruption has long been a point of friction between Afghan president Hamid Karzai and his Western allies. Monitoring organisation Transparency International ranks Afghanistan as one of the world's two most corrupt countries, ahead only of Somalia.
Washington believes graft weakens the central government and its ability to build up institutions like the Afghan security forces, which in turn determines when troops will leave. Mr Obama has pledged to start drawing down US forces from July 2011.
Dutch troops ended their mission in August and several European and other nations are under growing public pressure to bring their troops home.
Germany, the third-largest ISAF contributor with 4,400 soldiers, aims to start a pullout next year. Denmark hopes to withdraw many of its 700 troops by 2015 and Canada will pull out its nearly 3,000-strong force next year.
Aircraft crashes are not infrequent in Afghanistan. In October 2009, two helicopter crashes killed 11 US soldiers and three US civilians.
Reuters