One-day Afghan death toll of U.S. troops hits 7

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Washington — On the day of the largest one-day death toll in months for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, military officials and experts warned that the American public should brace for rising casualties as thousands of additional American troops pour into the region to confront a resurgent Taliban.

So far this year 73 American troops have died in Afghanistan, including seven on Monday, according to the U.S. military. At the current rate, 2009 would be the deadliest for the U.S. in more than seven years of fighting, surpassing the 132 killed last year, the military said.

Part of that is due to the Obama administration's decision to scale back operations in Iraq to refocus on Afghanistan, and the military is in the process of sending 18,000 additional troops into the country. Officers insist that the new strategy will work -- and indeed is already showing signs of promise. But, they cautioned, the arrival of more troops means more fighting and more U.S. deaths, at least in the short term.

"It is what we expected," said a military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the topic. "We anticipated that with forces going in, increased number of troops, increased engagement, you are going to have increased casualties." The U.S. has seen an upswing in military casualties before. American deaths in Iraq spiked to 126 in May 2007, as the U.S. surge moved toward its height. But soon after, violence in Iraq began to ease and U.S. deaths quickly went down, to 38 in October 2007 and just 23 in December 2007.

It is impossible to know whether Afghanistan will follow a similar pattern or if the Taliban will prove a more resilient enemy, officials said. But for now, experts predict difficult months ahead.

"I expect a hard summer of fighting -- I expect a hard year of fighting," said John Nagl, the president of the Center for a New American Security and an expert on counter-insurgency operations. "But I believe that by 18 months from now we will see clear indications the Taliban is losing strength and the government of Afghanistan is gaining strength." Monday's American deaths -- two in the south, four in the north, and one in the east -- reflected intensifying conflict in a large swath of the south, where a major U.S. offensive is underway. But they also signaled insurgents' determination to push into areas that have been relatively quiet, such as Afghanistan's northern tier, and to keep up pressure on American forces in the east, which borders Pakistan's volatile tribal areas.