Kabul - Three soldiers in the US-led coalition were killed in a roadside bombing in western Afghanistan while dozens of militants were killed in clashes between Afghan and international forces elsewhere in the country, officials said Thursday. The three soldiers were killed and another was wounded when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb blast Wednesday night, the US military said in a statement.
The statement did not disclose the nationalities of the victims, but most of the soldiers serving in the coalition are from the United States.
A donkey loaded with explosives was remotely detonated in the southern city of Kandahar Thursday, killing a policeman and wounding two other officers and a civilian, said Matiullah Khan Qaneh, Kandahar province police chief.
He said the donkey was tied to an electrical pole and militants detonated the explosive-laden animal when a police vehicle was passing by.
Meanwhile, seven militants were killed and six were wounded in a clash Wednesday with Afghan army commandos and US special forces backed by NATO air support in the Ghormach district of the western province of Badghis, the Afghan Defence Ministry said in a statement.
No Afghan or foreign forces were killed in the operation, it added.
In another incident in the southern province of Uruzgan, Afghan and coalition forces battled with a group of Taliban militants Tuesday in the Deh Rawood district.
During the firefight, in which small-arms, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy weapons were deployed, 55 suspected militants were killed, a separate US military statement said.
Afghan police officials on Wednesday said their forces, backed by international troops, killed more than 35 militants in the district after a group of 150 Taliban militants stormed the district headquarters.
Also in Deh Rawood, a coalition airstrike killed a Taliban commander named Sharif Agha and 14 other militants Tuesday, another US military statement said.
Another three militants were killed in Khas Uruzgan in Uruzgan province Tuesday after the militants attacked a joint Afghan-coalition patrol, the statement said.
An Afghan security officer and a coalition service member were wounded in the firefight, the statement said.
In a separate incident, NATO-led forces killed four insurgents who were trying to plant a roadside bomb in the western province of Farah, the alliance said in a statement.
After two insurgents were shot by NATO snipers, the militants tried to shield themselves with two children accompanying them, the statement said, adding that the soldiers waited until the children ran away and shot dead the remaining two insurgents.
Also in Farah province, coalition military forces killed three militants Wednesday in the Bala Bulok district after the insurgents attacked a coalition helicopter with small-arms fire, the US military said.
Due to the remoteness of the area, it is difficult to verify the Taliban death tolls independently.
In the southern province of Helmand, the alliance forces killed a civilian who approached their convoy and failed to stop despite several warnings, a NATO statement said.
More than 4,000 people, mainly insurgents, have been killed in the Afghan conflict so far this year.
