KABUL, Afghanistan — Three international service members were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, according to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
Jawed Faisal, a spokesman for the governor of Kandahar province, said the victims were Americans and put the number killed at four.
ISAF, following standard procedure, declined to provide the nationality of the troops pending notification of next of kin. A spokesman for the force in Kabul, asked about discrepancy in the number of dead, reiterated that three service members were killed "according to current reporting."
Their vehicle was struck by an explosion in the Zhari district of western Kandahar province about 3 p.m., Faisal said. He was not certain whether the vehicle had just entered or left a fortified coalition base.
Insurgents have a strong presence in the province, the spiritual home of the Taliban. Over the past three years, according to an ISAF commander in Kandahar, 10 percent of all coalition deaths in Afghanistan have occurred in Zhari and neighboring Panjwai district.
The attack in Kandahar came a day after three troops from the nation of Georgia were killed by a suicide bomber in Helmand province, just west of Kandahar.