Afghanistan ? Roadside bombs killed five NATO soldiers and a civilian in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, while a coalition of aid groups warned that violence is spreading to once-stable regions and forcing them to scale back humanitarian work.

The soldiers’ deaths marked a bloody start to the month in what has already been a deadly year for the separate U.S.-led coalition and NATO mission in Afghanistan, where an insurgency is raging nearly seven years after the fundamentalist Taliban regime was ousted.

Four of the NATO soldiers and a civilian died in Kunar province and the fifth soldier was killed in Khost, the alliance said in a statement. It did not release the nationalities of the soldiers, but most troops in those eastern areas are American.

The number of insurgent attacks in eastern Afghanistan have increased 40 percent this year compared to the same period in 2007. Afghan officials contend most of the militants fighting in the east use Pakistan’s tribal areas across the border as a base.