US troops and Afghan police killed in blasts

Two US service members and four Afghan policemen were killed today in separate explosions in eastern Afghanistan, an area rife with violence, officials said.

Nine other members of the Afghan National Police were injured in other incidents today.

Nato said the two American troops died in a bomb blast, but gave no other information. Their deaths bring to 12 the number of American troops killed in Afghanistan so far this month; 16 other soldiers from the international coalition have died this month.

In Khost city, members of the Afghan National Police found two explosives, said Amir Hassan, a spokesman for the police chief in Khost province near the Pakistan border.

He said the officers detonated one and removed the other, which subsequently exploded. Four police and a civilian died in the morning blast just outside a police barracks, he said.

In southern Afghanistan, three members of the national police force and three civilians were wounded when a suicide bomber in a truck detonated his explosives near a police office in the Daman district of Kandahar province, according to the Ministry of Interior. Three vehicles, including an ambulance, were damaged in the blast.

And in Ghanzi province, six Afghan policemen were injured when a remote-controlled bomb exploded near an international aid office, said Abdul Ghani, deputy police chief in Ghanzi province of eastern Afghanistan.

The Ministry of Defence reported today that the body of an Afghan National Army soldier, who was kidnapped on Monday by militants from his house in Baghlan province, was found in the Dushi district of the province in northern Afghanistan yesterday. The soldier was stationed in Khost district.

Separately, Nato reported today that Afghan and international forces patrolling in Helmand province on January 10 uncovered a cache of explosives and bomb-making equipment.

The patrol found nine jugs of home-made explosives totalling 250lb, a dozen bomb pressure plates, radio-controlled bomb devices and 35lb of ammonium nitrate-based fertiliser, Nato said.

The explosives were rigged to detonate with a cord and 200 rounds of machine gun ammunition.