A NATO soldier was killed Tuesday by suspected Taliban small-arms fire in eastern Afghanistan while a British soldier died from wounds sustained in an earlier attack, the alliance said, dpa reported.
A NATO statement did not disclose the nationality of the soldier shot Tuesday, but most of the soldiers based in eastern Afghanistan are from the United States although some French and Polish troops are also based there.
Casualties among NATO troops are on the rise in southern and eastern Afghanistan, the Taliban's main power bases, as the militants step up their attacks as the weather improves.
Tuesday's death took to 260 the overall number of NATO soldiers killed this year. At least 40 were killed in June, according to iCasualties.org, an independent website that tracks military fatalities in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Part of the number was a British soldier who died Monday of wounds sustained during a Taliban attack a day earlier in the Sangin district in the southern province of Helmand, the British Defence Ministry said.
Around 10,000 British soldiers are deployed in Helmand as part of the 120,000 troops from NATO and its partner countries stationed across the country.