A roadside bomb killed two NATO service members and a gunman shot dead a former local government official in southern Afghanistan where thousands of Afghan and international troops are bracing for an expected spring resurgence of Taliban attacks, officials said Sunday.

The coalition said the service members were killed Saturday. It did not provide any further details, or the nationalities of the troops.

Earlier, NATO reported that a third foreign service member died Saturday when a coalition helicopter crashed in Alasay district of Kapisa province in the east.

The three deaths brought to 133 the number of NATO troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year.