Six foreign soldiers, 10 Afghan guards killed in incidents (Roundup)

Aug 24, 2007, 12:42 GMT

Kabul - Six foreign soldiers were killed and five were wounded in separate incidents in Afghanistan while 10 Afghan security guards were killed when militants attacked their convoy in the southern region, officials said Friday.

Three soldiers, serving under International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were killed and two others were wounded while on operation in southern Afghanistan, ISAF said in a statement.

The soldiers were killed and wounded in southern Afghanistan, the statement said, but did not identify the nationalities of the soldiers, nor did it give an location of the incident or the type of the operation.

The majority of the troops stationed in southern Afghanistan, are British, US, Canadian, and Dutch soldiers.

In another incident, 10 Afghan security guards and at least one Taliban fighter were killed when the Taliban attacked a convoy in Afghanistan while three foreign soldiers were killed and three were wounded in road accidents, officials said Friday.

Dozens of Taliban militants attacked a convoy that was supplying foreign forces in southern Afghanistan Thursday night, killing 10 of the convoy's guards, the head of the convoy's security said.

The convoy was being escorted by about 80 guards when it came under attack in Zabul province on the highway between Kabul and Kandahar, Mohammad Saleem of the private Afghan security company said.

'The militants opened fire from both sides of the road, and during the hours-long firefight, 10 of our security guards were killed,' Saleem said, adding that the guards also inflicted casualties on the Taliban.

He said he could not give any details of the Taliban deaths but said a body of a Taliban fighter was left behind on the battlefield but the militants were able to remove the rest of their dead and wounded when they retreated.

In the western province of Herat, a vehicle rollover killed two US-led coalition soldiers and wounded two others Friday in the Kajaki district, the US military said in a statement.

Another foreign soldier, serving in the NATO-ISAF banner was killed and another was wounded Thursday in another road accident in the Shakardara district of Kabul province, the ISAF said in a statement.

Both soldiers were taken by helicopter to an ISAF medical facility and one died there of his injuries, the statement said.

The statements did not disclose the nationalities of the victims and said the accidents were under investigation.

Meanwhile, US-led coalition troops killed a militant and arrested 11 people in the eastern province of Nangarhar, the coalition said in a statement Friday.

The fighter was killed when he tried to attack coalition and Afghan troops, according to the statement. The prisoners were being questioned, it added.

More than 3,000 people, most of them insurgents, but including hundreds of Afghan and international forces, have been killed in the violence in Afghanistan this year after Taliban-led fighters stepped up their attacks in the country.