Six U.S. soldiers were killed on Sunday after a bomb attack ambushed the men in eastern Afghanistan. The deaths of the military members came about on a day when 29 people were murdered from a combination of roadside bombs and insurgent attacks.
Military officials are withholding the name of the soldiers (not pictured above) until their families can be notified of their deaths.
The deaths of the US Military men take the number of NATO troops killed to eight in the last two days, the deadliest death total for foreign troops in weeks. Also killed during the attacks were 16 Afghan civilians, five policemen and two members of a U.S.-led coalition in southern Afghanistan.
Among the dead were women and children who were in the Arghistan district along the Pakistan border.
Kandahar province spokesman Ahmad Jawed Faisal told MSNBC that one bomb went off after a minivan ran it over on Sunday morning, while a second went off as a tractor arrived to help the wounded. Two hours later a third bomb was hit by a civilian vehicle.
10 more civilians were also injured during the three blasts.
The attacks were likely a carefully orchestrated attempt to slow Tokyo aid into the region. Tokyo officials on Sunday pledged $16 million in development aid for Afghanistan over the next four years. Tokyo fficials hope that their efforts will keep Afghanistan from slipping back into chaos when foreign troops pull out of the region at the conclusion of 2014.
According to the Daily Mail 225 NATO service members have died in Afghanistan in 2012.
In 2011 a record 3,021 civilians were killed while the number of dead civilians has already dropped by 36 percent in the first four months of 2012.
