AKIPRESS.COM - The announcement that British soldiers are being dispatched to Helmand Province came hours after a Taliban suicide bomber killed six U.S. troops near a major military base in the deadliest single attack on American troops in the country since 2013.

A British Ministry of Defense statement late Monday said "a small number of U.K. personnel" were being sent to Helmand in "an advisory role." The U.K. has 450 troops in Afghanistan as part of NATO's training mission, reports AP.

Security has worsened across the country as the Taliban test the mettle of Afghan security forces following the end of the international combat mission last year. While they don't typically hold any territory they win for more than a few hours or days, the Taliban have dealt a massive blow to the confidence of the over-stretched Afghan forces, who are fighting the insurgency almost alone for the first time. Officials have said casualties, as well as attrition and desertion, have taken a toll on numbers of government forces, while the Taliban strength seems never to diminish.

There are currently about 13,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, including 9,800 Americans, with a mandate to "train, assist and advise" their Afghan counterparts. That's compared to 140,000 foreign troops at the peak of combat operations in 2011.

Officials see no traditional winter slowdown in the insurgents' quest to overthrow the Kabul government, especially in the warmer southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. They expect tough fighting in 2016 as what the Pentagon last week called an "invigorated Taliban" steps up its fight.

Monday was the deadliest day for American troops in Afghanistan since May 2013, when five were killed by a roadside bomb in the country's south and two killed by an Afghan soldier in an insider attack in the west. Before Monday's attack, the most recent American casualties in the country were on Aug. 22, when three contractors were killed in a suicide attack in Kabul.