KABUL: An American soldier has died in Afghanistan after being wounded while fighting Taliban-led insurgents, NATO said Sunday.

In a brief statement, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the soldier had died on Saturday in eastern Afghanistan, an increasingly volatile theatre of the war against the anti-government militants.

"An ISAF service member from the United States died of wounds yesterday as a result of an engagement with insurgents in eastern Afghanistan," it said.

It gave no other details.

Around 113,000 international service men and women are deployed to Afghanistan under US and NATO command for the fight against the Islamist militants, now in its ninth year.

Another 40,000 troops are being sent to the country and are due to arrive by August, military officials have said.

The decision to send more foreign soldiers is part of a renewed strategy for bringing the fight to the Taliban while backing up battlefield progress with aid and development efforts to win over local populations.

The increased forces, however, mean more engagements and inevitably a higher rate of deaths among foreign forces, the officials say.

This has become evident in recent months, as the total death toll among international soldiers in 2009 was 520, compared with 295 for the year before.

According to an AFP tally based on that kept by the independent website icasualties.org, 28 foreign soldiers have died in Afghanistan so far in 2010.