A group of four foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan after their helicopter was shot down in the south of the country.

Nato said in a statement that its International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) members were killed at noon in Helmand province on Wednesday.

It said their helicopter was brought down by hostile fire in the province's Sangin region.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, adding that they downed the helicopter with two rockets.

The strike brings the number of Nato troops who have died this week to 23.

American helicopter

Al Jazeera’s James Bays, in the capital Kabul, said: "The information that I've got from military sources say that it happened in Sangin in Helmand, an area where there has been very heavy fighting recently.

"Sangin is the area of British operations, although I discovered from my sources that the helicopter that was brought down was an American helicopter."

Another Nato soldier was reported to have been killed in a separate attack on Wednesday.

The attacks come a day after 10 troops from the US-led forces in Afghanistan were killed in separate fighting.

US and British forces are stationed in southern Afghanistan, the Taliban's primary area of activity, and are planning a major operation in Kandahar in the south.

In December 2009, Barack Obama, the US president, said that 30,000 more US troops would be deployed to the country, primarily in the south, to try and end the war there.

The US military entered Afghanistan in 2001 to remove the Taliban from power, whom they accused of harboring al-Qaeda operatives, following the September 11 attacks.

PHOTO CAPTION

The map of Afghanistan

Al-Jazeera