Suicide bombings have killed 173 people in Afghanistan so far this year, NATO announced Wednesday.

Spokesman Maj. Luke Knittig said 151 of the suicide attack victims were Afghan civilians and children. The rest included NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan authorities.

Taliban-led militants in Afghanistan have increased their use of Iraqi-style tactics, including suicide, car and roadside bombings, in a bid to topple the U.S.-backed Hamid Karzai government, officials said.

"Such blatant disregard for human life and potential undertaken by insurgents who callously ask to be called mujahedeen (holy warriors) cannot be more clear," Knittig told reporters in Kabul.

The release of the NATO numbers follows a recent warning by the U.S. military that a suicide bombing cell in Kabul was planning to attack foreign forces.

That warning came after car bombing in the capital Friday, which killed at least 16 people, including two American soldiers. An unidentified aid worker was also gunned down.

It was the deadliest suicide attack in the city since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in 2001 in their hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Most of Afghanistan's surge in violence has taken place in volatile southern provinces, where about 8,000 NATO forces, including Canadian soldiers, took military control from the U.S.-led coalition on Aug. 1.

Met with strong resistance from insurgents, NATO recently asked for as many as 2,500 more troops to the region and greater air support.

In a recent firefight in the south, police killed 16 Taliban in a mountainous area in Helmand province on Monday. Militants had retaken the post for the second time in two months until Afghan and NATO forces fought back and reclaimed it.

With files from The Associated Press