Five Canadian soldiers were wounded, one seriously, in a suspected suicide car bomb attack on Friday on their armoured vehicle in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, the Canadian military said.
In other violence in Kandahar, a roadside bomb killed a policeman and wounded two others in Maiwand district, while in neighbouring Helmand province, the local government spokesman said police killed eight Taleban guerrillas and arrested 10.
The attack on the Canadians occurred about 15 km (10 miles) outside the city of Kandahar, and about 10 km (six miles) from the airport, where Canadian troops are based. Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said the guerrillas were responsible.
"A car full of explosives blew up near a Canadian armoured vehicle. The bomber was killed," General Rahmatullah Raufi, commander of the Afghan army's southern region, told Reuters. He said the bomber was an Afghan who had been wearing a vest bearing the name Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the same as that of an outlawed Pakistani militant group.
"He may have had a connection to that group," he said.
A Canadian military spokesman, Lieutenant Mark MacIntyre, said the badly wounded soldier was expected to be evacuated to the US military hospital at Landstuhl in Germany, while the others were expected to return to duty shortly.