News - Afghanistan

A Nato helicopter crashed Wednesday morning in western Afghanistan, wounding two troops, Isaf said.

Isaf released a statement but did not provide more details about the crash in the relatively peaceful west, apart from saying the crash is under investigation.

It comes on the same day that a Nato soldier was killed in eastern Afghanistan by a landmine.

Isaf did not release any details of the location of the incident or the identity of the soldier, as per its protocol.

The soldier is the third to die in a week from the blast of an improvised explosive device (IED). The other two were both in southern Afghanistan.

US soldier Michael Ristau, 25, died July 13 in Qalat, Zabul province after his vehicle was struck by an IED, the US Department of Defense (DOD) said.

US soldier Sterling Wyatt, 21, died July 11, in Kandahar province when his vehicle was attacked with IED, according to the US DOD.

So far this year, 243 Nato troops have been killed in Afghanistan, including 182 Americans, according to iCasualties.org which track the foreign soliders casualties.

IEDs are responsible for at least 86 of the total US soldier deaths this year.

There are currently 130,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, 90,000 of them are US forces.