KABUL (AFP) – A NATO soldier was killed following a gun attack in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the military said.

The nationality of the soldier was not revealed, according to policy.

The latest death brings to 170 the number of foreign troops to die in Afghanistan as a result of the war so far this year, according to an AFP count based on the independent icasualties.org website.

A total of 520 foreign soldiers died during 2009.

NATO and the United States are throwing thousands of extra troops into Afghanistan, where their military deployment is to peak at 150,000 in August under a strategy designed to bring a swift end to a nearly nine-year conflict.

Most of the extra troops are deploying in the south, the heartland of the Taliban-led insurgency and the focus of the US-led fight to flush the militants from Kandahar and Helmand provinces.