On Saturday four US soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Southern Afghanistan. <br /><br />The deaths bring to 396 the toll of foreign soldiers killed so far this year, compared to 520 for all of 2009.<br /><br />The icasualties.org website puts the number of soldiers to have died since the Afghan insurgency began in 2001 at 1,964, with 1,204 of them Americans.<br /><br />Al Jazeera's Clayton Swisher has been on patrol with US troops in the Arghandab river valley, used by the Taliban to stage attacks in neighbouring Kandahar.<br /><br />He reports on the perseverance of the 82nd Airborne Division soldiers.
