Four US soldiers killed in Afghanistan

Four US soldiers were killed in a landmine blast in Afghanistan as violence erupted in at least three districts in the south of the country, Afghan and US officials said on Sunday.
In the deadliest incident for the US military since the latest campaign to hunt down Taleban and al Qaeda leaders, Operation Mountain Storm, began on March 7, the four American servicemen were killed in troubled Zabul province on Saturday.
The incident follows a bloody week in which American planes bombed two areas of the south after soldiers were attacked by militants.
"Four US service members assigned to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan were killed in action today (Saturday) here in southern Afghanistan," US Central Command said in a statement.
The US has not revealed which branch of service the four were from but late Sunday said that they had been killed by a landmine as they were driving about 30 kilometres east of the provincial capital Qalat.
"The investigation into the incident is still continuing, but we can say that the group was travelling in a vehicle when it struck a landmine," US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Tucker Mansager said in an email.
"We have nothing that indicates it was an ambush or an accident, just a mine strike," he added.
The deaths bring to 127 the number of coalition soldiers, marines, air force members and intelligence agents killed in Afghanistan since the launch of US-led operations to topple the Taleban regime in late 2001, although most deaths have not been in combat.
More than two years after the fall of the Taleban, southern Afghanistan remains a trouble spot with insurgents continuing to launch attacks on US and Afghan troops and aid workers.
In another clash in the south of the country, three suspected Taleban were wounded during an operation Saturday in southern Helmand province involving Afghan soldiers, an Afghan defence ministry spokesman said.
"In a military operation in Gereshk district of Helmand province three enemy forces were injured and 10 of them arrested," General Zahir Azimi told a press briefing in Kabul.
And in Musa Qala district of Helmand, about 50 kilometres north of Gereshk, one militant and four pro-government fighters were killed in fighting that erupted when a government office was attacked, an interior ministry spokesman said.