Two US-led coalition soldiers were killed in Afghanistan on Friday when a bomb struck their convoy, as authorities said at least 25 militants and a policeman died in various military operations. The bomb struck the soldiers on the outskirts of Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar, the US military said, without releasing the nationality of the soldiers.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack but Taliban insurgents regularly use roadside bombs against the thousands of mostly Western troops helping the Afghan government to defeat an extremist insurgency. "There was an IED (improvised explosive device) attack on the convoy this morning and two coalition service members were killed," US Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo told AFP. "It was a roadside bomb."
Also on Friday, Afghan and international troops came under attack in the south-western province of Farah and returned fire, killing a "militant leader", the US military said in a statement.
It identified the man as Haji Ghulam Jan, "a logistics expert and IED facilitator with connections to multiple Taliban commanders and foreign forces." Some locals said the man was a civilian but Afghan authorities also said he was a militant. The military also reported that its troops had killed more insurgents, including another bomb-maker, in a separate fight in the southern province of Zabul.
Troops also fought with rebels in the southern province of Uruzgan on Thursday, killing 16 Taliban, said Mohammad Nabi Uruzgani, the provincial intelligence chief. A policeman was also killed, he said. Elsewhere Thursday, Afghan military forces killed seven Taliban militants in the volatile southern province of Kandahar, a stronghold of the militia waging an insurgency that has seen record attacks this year.