Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan

Two roadside bombs wounded four Canadian soldiers and killed another today - Nato’s fourth fatality since taking command in southern Afghanistan this week - a Canadian military spokesman said.

In another part of the volatile south, police backed by Nato warplanes killed 10 suspected Taliban, a local police chief said.

A pre-dawn blast killed Cpl. Christopher Jonathan Reid and wounded a fellow soldier patrolling a key highway on the outskirts of Kandahar city in a light armoured vehicle, said spokesman Major Scott Lundy.

Another explosion in the same spot three hours later wounded three other Canadian soldiers on the same patrol. All the wounded soldiers were expected to return to duty, Lundy said.

Reid was the 18th Canadian killed in Afghanistan since 2002.

On Tuesday, three British soldiers died in a militant ambush in neighbouring Helmand province, just a day after Nato took charge of security in the south from a US-led coalition that was deployed nearly five years ago to oust the Taliban regime for hosting Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban militia has stepped up attacks this year, sparking fighting with foreign and Afghan forces that has left more than 900 people, mostly militants, dead since May.

Late yesterday, police with Nato air support killed 10 Taliban fighters, and clashed with more insurgents today as the militants tried to recover bodies from the battlefield in Helmand province, a local police chief Ghulam Rasool said.

The clashes happened in mountains near the village of Thakhatul in Garmser district. Rasool was transferred to Garmser and given an unusually large contingent of 200 police to crush the Taliban after insurgents briefly took over the district last month.

On Tuesday, fighting in Garmser left 18 Taliban and one policeman dead, according to Rasool.

Meanwhile, in southern Zabul province, 12 highway police manning a checkpoint abandoned their post overnight, said Yousef Stanezai, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

Stanezai said the men did not join the Taliban, but fled as provincial police prepared to arrest them for extorting money from motorists and hijacking a fuel truck.