Two Nato soldiers killed in Afghanistan
Bomb blasts killed two Nato soldiers and wounded several others today in Afghanistan, where insurgent violence is running at its highest level since the 2001 US-led invasion, authorities said.
The soldiers were killed and wounded in two separate attacks in restive southern Afghanistan, Nato's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement. It gave no more details, including the nationalities of the troops.
The attack follows several days of bloody combat in the south of the country.
Yesterday, a joint Afghan and coalition force on combat patrol in restive Sha Wali Kot district in southern Kandahar province came under attack from insurgent small-arms fire and rocket propelled grenades, the US-led coalition said in a statement.
Soldiers repelled the attack before calling in coalition aircraft which "destroyed the positively identified enemy firing positions with precision guided munitions," it said.
The coalition said "more than 40 insurgents" were killed, while Afghan and foreign forces suffered no losses.
Taliban spokesmen were not immediately available for comment and it was not possible to independently confirm the death toll.
Also today, two cars carrying Afghan deminers were reported to be missing in eastern Patika province, said provincial deputy police chief Ghulam Dastager. He said officers were investigating, but gave no more details.
In the past, insurgents have kidnapped deminers, most of which are funded by the international community and work to clear mines laid during Afghanistan's decades of conflict.
Afghan and coalition forces claim to have killed around 200 Taliban insurgents in central and southern Afghanistan in recent weeks. The Taliban have admitted some losses, but say many of the dead are civilians - a charge denied by the coalition.
Militants have also launched scores of attacks, mostly roadside or suicide bombs, that have killed several dozen local and foreign soldiers as well as many civilians.
The Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan from the mid-1990s until 2001, imposing an extreme version of Islam and providing refuge for al-Qaida leaders and thousands of other Muslim militants from around the world.
They were ousted by a US-led coalition following the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US, but are now leading an increasingly bloody campaign against the country's Western-backed government.
