Six Afghan policemen were killed on Thursday when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle, part of a convoy of US-led forces in south-east Afghanistan, a provincial police official said. There were no reports of casualties among soldiers in the blast, which happened on a dirt road near the town of Khost, close to the border with Pakistan, he said.
Violence has surged in Afghanistan in the past 18 months, the bloodiest period since US-led troops overthrew Taliban's radical Islamic government in 2001. Afghan forces and US soldiers began an operation in the area following the Khost blast, the official added. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
In another incident, a British soldier was shot dead and two were wounded in the southern province of Helmand, the British Ministry of Defence said. A Dutch soldier wounded in a suicide bomb attack in the southern town of Deh Rawud earlier this week died from his injuries on Thursday after being transported to a hospital in Utrecht in the Netherlands. First Lieutenant Tom Krist was 24.
Taliban insurgents said they had killed 13 Nato soldiers and destroyed armoured vehicles in Helmand, a rebel spokesman said. Afghan troops backed by US-led coalition forces and air power killed 11 Taliban fighters during a five-hour battle in the southern province of Uruzgan on Thursday, the US military said.
Inspired by militants in Iraq, the Taliban largely rely on roadside bombs and suicide attacks in their campaign against foreign and Afghan government forces.