As much as $60billion in U.S. funds has been lost to waste and fraud in the past decade of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has been claimed.

The billions have been lost through lax oversight of contractors, poor planning and payoffs to warlords and insurgents, according to a panel set up by the U.S. government.

Damningly, it found that the Afghan insurgency's second biggest funding source after the trade in heroin is the diversion of money from U.S. backed projects and contracts.

The news comes at the end of the deadliest month yet for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, with 66 servicemen killed, according to an Associated Press tally.