Roadside bomb kill 5 ISAF soldiers in Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb struck a military vehicle of NATO-led troops in the Taliban former stronghold Kandahar province 450 km south of Kabul on Saturday leaving five soldiers dead, spokesman for provincial administration Jawed Faisal said.

"The soldiers were on patrol in Maiwand district this afternoon when a roadside bomb struck a military vehicle killing five service members on the spot," Faisal told Xinhua without giving further details.

Meantime, a local official on condition of anonymity confirmed the incident, saying the deadly blast took place in Sarkari Kariz area of Maiwand district at 01:00 p.m. local time Saturday and all the victims are Americans.

Earlier, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in a statement released in Kabul confirmed the death of five soldiers in the blast of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in south Afghanistan on Saturday.

"Five International Security Assistance Force service members died following an Improvised Explosive Device attack in southern Afghanistan today," the ISAF statement added.

However, it did not identify the nationalities of the victims and the exact place of the incident, saying it is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities.

So far this year 47 NATO-led forces soldiers with 33 of them Americans have been killed in the conflict-ridden Afghanistan.