Several key Taliban leaders and about 50 fighters have been killed in Afghanistan in an ongoing operation launched last week to clear militants from the country’s violence-plagued south, officials said today.

A suicide bomber on a bicycle attacked Canadian troops handing out sweets to children in southern Afghanistan today, killing four Nato soldiers and wounding many others, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast.

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

Nato airstrikes and artillery have killed a further 92 suspected Taliban fighters, the alliance reported today, pushing its toll of militant dead in a 10-day offensive past 500.

Nato and Afghan forces killed 94 Taliban fighters in airstrikes and ground attacks in southern Afghanistan, the military alliance said today.