Nato soldier among 12 killed in Afghan violence

Taliban attacks across Afghanistan left 12 people dead, including a Nato soldier and six Afghan civilians, security officials said Tuesday. The soldier with the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force was killed early Tuesday when a joint ISAF-Nato patrol was ambushed by Taliban insurgents in the eastern province of Paktia, an alliance spokeswoman said.
The soldier's name and nationality could not be revealed due to ISAF policy but most ISAF soldiers in the east are American. Five Afghan soldiers were wounded in the same incident, an Afghan army general told AFP. The death brought the number of international troops killed this year to 135, according to an AFP count, most of them in action as the Taliban insurgency has intensified. Five have been killed since Saturday.
In a separate incident, six Afghan civilians were killed Monday when a rocket-propelled grenade blew up their vehicle when Taliban militia attacked a military convoy in southern Afghanistan, police said. The men had been travelling in a minibus near a convoy bringing supplies to Nato-led troops that came under attack in the southern province of Kandahar, the provincial police commander said.
An Afghan guard with a US private security firm was also killed in the attack, Kandahar police chief Sayed Agha Saqeb told AFP. The attack was in the Zhari district, just west of Kandahar city, which sees regular clashes between Taliban-led insurgents and troops. Kandahar is the birthplace of the radical Islamist movement that swept to power in 1996 and was removed in 2001 by a US-led coalition.
A separate clash between troops and insurgents on Monday in Ghazni province, further north, left four Taliban dead, provincial police chief Alishah Ahamdzai said. Another was arrested.
Ghazni has been in the headlines since the July 19 kidnapping of 23 South Korean aid workers. Two of the hostages were freed Monday. Two others were shot dead by the Taliban last month. The Taliban wants the release from jail of some of their fighters in exchange for the hostages but the government has rejected the demand.