KABUL: Two NATO soldiers, one of them American, were killed in attacks on Monday in volatile regions of Afghanistan, the alliance said, a day after four US troops died in violence.

NATO`s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement that two of its soldiers had died in separate improvised bomb attacks in the north of the country and in the south. It gave no further details.

An ISAF spokesman told AFP the soldier who died in the south was a US national.

The deaths bring to 453 the total number of troops to die in the Afghan war so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on a count kept by the independent icasualties.org website.

Most of the troops in the north are German, Norwegian and a small contingent from Sweden, being reinforced by Americans as violence in the northern provinces escalates.

The United States and NATO have 141,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting to quell the Taliban insurgency grinding towards the end of its ninth year.

The number is set to peak at 150,000 in coming weeks, with most new deployments heading to the southern hotspots of Kandahar and Helmand provinces, Taliban territory where fighting is fiercest.

BDST: 1329 HRS, August 23, 2010