A roadside bomb killed three Afghans guarding a convoy carrying supplies for NATO-led forces today, while soldiers shot dead two suspected insurgents elsewhere in the south of the country, officials said.

A suicide bomber on a bicycle attacked Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan today, an Afghan official said.

A senior Nato official today likened the tactics of Taliban militants who hide among civilians in Afghanistan to those of Hezbollah in Lebanon, as US and Afghan forces seized bomb-making materials and killed a suspected al-Qaida operative in a raid on a house.