Kabul - A Canadian soldier was killed in a roadside bomb blast in southern Afghanistan, while US-led coalition forces killed several Taliban militants and detained eight others in the same region, officials said on Monday. Michael Yuki Hayakaze, a Canadian soldier serving under the banner of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), was killed when his patrolling vehicle was struck by a roadside mine in Panjwayi district of southern Kandahar province on Sunday, the Canadian defence ministry said in a statement posted at its website.
"This cowardly attack will not deter us from carrying out this important and much needed mission with our NATO partners," Canadian Defence Minister Peter Gordon MacKay was quoted in the statement as saying.
He is the 79th Canadian killed in Afghanistan since 2002, and a Canadian diplomat was killed there in 2006.
The majority of Canada's 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan are deployed in Kandahar province, but their involvement in the conflict has caused political controversy in the North American nation.
Meanwhile, US-led coalition forces killed several Taliban militants and arrested eight others in an operation in the southern province of Helmand, US military said in a statement.
The militants were killed and four were detained during an operation to degrade Taliban leadership networks, and target a Taliban commander responsible for facilitating foreign fighters and weapons smuggling operations in Garmsir district of the province, it said.
Another four militants were detained during a separate operation in Qalat district of Zabul province, the statement said, adding "A detainee is also associated with Taliban and foreign fighter facilitation operations."
Six years after the fall of Taliban militants in a US invasion in late 2001, the insurgents are adamant to oust the Western-back Afghan government and expel some 60,000 international forces personnel by mounting guerrilla attacks, mainly in southern and eastern regions.
