KABUL — A roadside bomb and gunfire attack killed a U.S. service member in southern Afghanistan yesterday, a death that pushed August into a tie with July as the deadliest months of the eight-year war.

A statement from the NATO-led force in Kabul said the U.S. service member died in southern Afghanistan when a patrol responded to the bombing and gunfire attack. No other details were released.

The death brought to 44 the number of U.S. troops who have died in Afghanistan this month with four days left in August.

More than 60,000 U.S. troops, including Kane'ohe Bay Marines, are in the country — a record number — to fight rising insurgent violence. The number of roadside bombs deployed by militants across the country has skyrocketed, and U.S. forces have moved into new and deadlier areas this summer, in part to help secure the country's Aug. 20 presidential election.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan released his new counterinsurgency strategy yesterday, telling troops that the supply of militants is "effectively endless" and that U.S. and NATO forces need to see the country through the eyes of its villagers.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal said troops "must change the way that we think, act and operate." McChrystal hopes to install a new approach to counterinsurgency where troops will make the safety of villagers the top priority, above killing an endless supply of militants.

"An insurgency cannot be defeated by attrition; its supply of fighters, and even leadership, is effectively endless," the new guidelines said.

When U.S. and NATO troops battle a group of 10 militants and kill two of them, the relatives of the two dead insurgents will want revenge and will likely join the insurgency, the guidelines say, spelling out the formula: "10 minus 2 equals 20 (or more) rather than 8."

"This is part of the reason why eight years of individually successful kinetic actions have resulted in more violence," McChrystal said.

Afghan election officials have released two batches of vote tallies that show President Hamid Karzai with 44.8 percent of the vote and top challenger Abdullah Abdullah with 35.1 percent, based on returns from 17 percent of polling stations. The next partial results are expected tomorrow.