WASHINGTON - The US military death toll in Afghanistan surpassed 1,000 at a time when President Barack Obamas strategy to defeat the Taliban is facing its greatest test, according to media reports. More casualties are expected when the campaign turn back the fierce insurgency kicks into high gear this summer. The results may determine the outcome of a nearly nine-year conflict that has become the focus of Americas fight against Islamic militancy. The 1,000th US military death occurred in a roadside bombing Friday - just before the Memorial Day weekend when America honours the dead in all its wars. A NATO statement did not identify or give the nationality of the victim. US Spokesman Col Wayne Shanks said the trooper was American - the 32nd US war death this month by an Associated Press count. The AP said it bases its tally on Defence Department reports of deaths suffered as a direct result of the Afghan conflict, including personnel assigned to units in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Uzbekistan. Other news organisations count deaths suffered by service members assigned elsewhere as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, which includes operations in the Philippines, the Horn of Africa and at the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The grim milestone reflects the acceleration in fighting since President Obama shifted the focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda plotted the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States. Yet Obamas decision brought a heavy price. In the last 10 months, at least 313 US service members have been killed in the war - more than the 295 who died in the first five years of the conflict. More than 430 of the US dead were killed since Obama took office in January 2009. The number of US troops in Afghanistan has now surpassed the total in Iraq - roughly 94,000 in Afghanistan compared with 92,000 in Iraq. In 2008, the US force in Afghanistan numbered about 30,000. For many of the US service members in Afghanistan, the 1,000-mark passed without fanfare. The United Nations reported in January that an increasing number of Afghan civilians have been killed over the past three years, with a total of at least 6,053 since 2007. The 1,000th US death comes midway between Obamas decision last December to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan and a review of the wars progress that he has promised by the end of the year. After a long and wrenching conflict in Iraq - which has claimed nearly 4,400 American military lives - Obama has promised not to be backed into an open-ended war in Afghanistan. He has insisted that some US troops will come home in the beginning of July 2011. That has not been enough to satisfy his anti-war supporters. At the same time, mid-2011 may be too soon to turn the tide of the war. As casualties rise, the slide in overall support for the war may accelerate. A majority of Americans - 52 percent - say the war is not worth the cost. The negative assessment in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll followed a brief rise in support for the war after Obama refocused the US war plan last year. Those figures could change dramatically depending on the outcome of the coming operation in Kandahar, the biggest city in the south, with about a half million people, and the Talibans former spiritual headquarters. US commanders believe Kandahar is the key to the ethnic Pashtun south, the main theatre in the war.