Roadside Bomb Kills 4 GIs in Afghanistan

A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers Monday while they were on patrol with Afghan troops in a volatile mountainous region of Oruzgan province, the U.S. military announced.

Lt. Mike Cody, a spokesman, said the soldiers’ armored vehicle hit the explosive device along a valley road in the province’s Dihrawud district, a hotbed of the insurgency.

After the blast, militants opened fire with guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The troops fought back and called in attack helicopters and fighter planes, a military statement said. It said insurgent casualties were still being assessed.

“This is a sad and tragic day for us all,” Brig. Gen. John Sterling, a U.S. commander, said in the statement.

The names of the troops were withheld pending notification of their families.

The bombing raised the death toll of U.S. personnel in the Afghan conflict to 214 since the United States invaded in late 2001. The blast was the biggest loss of life for the U.S. military since late September, when five troops were killed in a helicopter crash.

In other violence, officials said five Afghan members of a U.S.-backed militia had been killed in a battle in the southern province of Helmand.

The five pro-government militiamen were killed when suspected Taliban rebels ambushed them Sunday, said Gen. Abdulrahman, the provincial police chief, who uses only one name.

Two were killed in the initial attack, and the other three fled but were tracked down and shot, he said. Two other militiamen escaped.