Kabul:
The US military has suffered its 1,000th death of the Afghan war, according to a count by The Associated Press.
The grim milestone was reached when NATO reported that a service member was killed on Friday in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan.
The statement did not identify the victim's nationality, but a US spokesman said that the service member was American.
The AP bases its tally on Pentagon reports of deaths suffered as a direct result of the Afghan conflict, including personnel assigned to units in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Uzbekistan.
The death of 1,000 US troops, an important milestone in Afghanistan, comes midway between President Barack Obama's decision to send 30,000 US more troops into this war and a gut check on the war's progress that has been promised for the end of the year.
Obama personally visited Dover Air Force Base in Delaware last year, to honour the return of 18 fallen Americans, who were killed in Afghanistan in October 2009.
Obama has vowed not to be backed into an open-ended war, insisting that some troops will come home beginning in July 2011. That is not enough to satisfy his anti-war supporters on the political left, and as casualties rise it may not be enough to stop the slide in overall support for the war.
Paul and Mary Bradshaw lost their son Brian Bradshaw, who was killed by an IED explosion in 2009, while serving in Afghanistan.
The Washington state couple still have not found it within them to remove items from their son's childhood room in the house.
On the general outlook of the war in Afghanistan and the increasing number of fatalities, Mary Bradshaw said: "It seem like such a waste."
For his part, Paul Bradshaw said: "It sure seems to be that to us that it's hard to understand and justify one why it's going on and two why it's going on so long."
The 1,000-dead mark comes as US forces broaden their offensive across southern Afghanistan. US, NATO and Afghan forces are beginning a campaign for the Taliban birthplace of Kandahar that will pose the greatest test for the counter-insurgency strategy Obama adopted last year.
The US-dominated offensive this spring in tiny Marjah, in Helmand Province, took longer and was less conclusive than military leaders had hoped. Kandahar poses a far larger challenge.
It is also expected to lead to a spike in US casualties even though the military says the campaign will include very little traditional combat.
Arturo Munoz, an insurgency expert on Afghanistan, said as US forces expand their operations in Afghanistan, a rise in casualties is inevitable.
"This figure of a thousand; yes it signifies that we made an investment in human beings in this country but it's almost inevitable that it would come to that size," said Munoz.
The top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, said last week that the southern campaign is the largest means to his end of persuading Afghans to reject the Taliban, take greater control of their own security and support the central government in Kabul.
McChrystal also predicted an increase in US casualties.
During a Pentagon press conference last week McChrystal said they "should expect increased violence as our combined security forces expand into Taliban controlled areas. "
While some of the US soldiers, who were injured, have been transported to US military hospitals others will never make it home alive.
Some of those soldiers will be buried at Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, the resting place of veterans of wars.