KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's recent spate of violence claimed the lives of two more NATO soldiers Wednesday, while the death toll in June among militants rose to 200.
In northern Afghanistan, a female radio station owner was gunned down -- the second death of a female reporter in a week. Elsewhere, U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops backed by airstrikes killed two militants and detained 19.
Both military and militant operations are intensifying, raising doubts about the prospects for stability in Afghanistan more than five years after a U.S.-led invasion drove the Taliban regime from power for sheltering Osama bin Laden.
Two soldiers from NATO's International Security Assistance Force died in "separate engagements with enemy fighters" in southern Afghanistan, a military statement said. It did not provide their nationalities or specify where the fighting took place.
The deaths brought to 77 the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press count. Six have been killed in the last six days, including at least four U.S. soldiers. At least 38 American troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year.
The militant fatalities this month account for about 10 percent of the estimated 2,000 insurgency-related deaths in Afghanistan this year, according to an AP tally based on figures reported by U.S., NATO and Afghan officials.
An ISAF spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Maria Carl, said NATO and Afghan troops are participating in more than 20 operations around the country and operating in more regions than a year ago, which accounts for some of the increased violence.
Three gunmen killed Zakia Zaki, owner and manager of Peace Radio in northern Parwan province, in her house in front of her 8-year-old son early Wednesday, provincial Gov. Abdul Jabar Takwa said. Zaki had led the radio station since it opened after the fall of the Taliban, Takwa said.
"The people were happy with her radio station, and she was providing information for Parwan, Kapisa and Kabul provinces," the governor said.
Another reporter, Shokiba Sanga Amaaj, was shot in the back in her house in Kabul on Friday by two male relatives, said Gen. Ali Shah Paktiawal, the Kabul police director of criminal investigations. She was a newsreader for Shamshad TV.
Women have become active in Afghanistan's independent media with the easing of restrictions following the ouster of the Taliban in late 2001, but they remain a small minority among journalists.
In the central province of Uruzgan, militants attacked troops from the U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces in the Khas Uruzgan district on Tuesday, a coalition statement said, adding that two suspected militants were found dead later and nine "enemy fighters" were detained.
To the southeast, coalition and Afghan troops on Wednesday raided a suspected Taliban hide-out in Zabul province, detaining 10 suspected fighters, the coalition said.
Southern and eastern Afghanistan are at the center of the Taliban-led insurgency against Afghan and foreign troops.
