Suicide bombings have killed 173 people, mostly Afghans, in Afghanistan since January, NATO said Wednesday in the first such toll provided by the alliance.
NATO spokesman Maj. Luke Knittig said 151 of the victims — more than 87 percent — were Afghan civilians, including children, while the remainder included NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan authorities.
"Such blatant disregard for human life and potential undertaken by insurgents who callously ask to be called mujahedeen (holy warriors) cannot be more clear," Knittig told reporters in Kabul.
The toll's release comes amid an upsurge in Taliban-led violence and follows a warning by the U.S. military that a suicide bombing cell in Kabul was plotting to attack foreign forces.
Details of the cell were released after a car bombing in Kabul last Friday killed at least 16 people, including two American soldiers, in the deadliest suicide attack in the Afghan capital since a U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban in 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden.
Militants in Afghanistan have been increasingly using Iraqi-style tactics, including suicide, car and roadside bombings, this year in a bid to topple the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
