Taliban kill 9 American soldiers

Taliban insurgents carried out a bold assault on a remote base near the border with Pakistan on Sunday, NATO reported, and a senior American military official said nine American soldiers were killed.

The attack, the worst against Americans in Afghanistan in three years, illustrated the growing threat of Taliban militants and their associates, who in recent months have made Afghanistan a far deadlier war zone for American-led forces than Iraq.

Gen. David Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, has asked his bosses to consider pulling as many as 7,000 soldiers out of the country as early as September, the New York Times is reporting.

With Iraq slightly improving, analysts are quick to point out that it's not that Iraq has suddenly become safe -- it's that Afghanistan has become much more deadly.

Nine American soldiers were killed Sunday in another militant attack. More U.S. and allied soldiers were killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq in both May and June.