Afghanistan ? American forces suffered a deadly 24 hours in Afghanistan, with eight troops killed in attacks including an audacious Taliban raid on a police compound in the key southern city of Kandahar, officials said Wednesday.

The U.S. and its coalition allies have warned that violence and troop casualties are likely to mount this summer as thousands of new forces fan out across southern insurgent strongholds in a bid to turn around the nearly nine-year-long war.

However, a top U.S. commander in the south said Wednesday that the new operation should start reducing violence in coming months.

So far in July, 45 coalition troops have died in Afghanistan, 33 of them Americans, continuing the upward trend of the previous month, which was the war’s deadliest for the NATO-led force, with 103 international soldiers killed.