A senior Afghan police official and three of his bodyguards were killed in a bomb blast near Kabul on Monday, authorities said, as NATO announced the death of one of its soldiers.
Rajab Khan, the district police chief of Jalriz in Wardak province, just south of the capital, was killed when his car was blown up by a roadside bomb, a provincial administration spokesman said.
"Rajab Khan was driving… a remote-controlled bomb struck his car, killing himself and three of his bodyguards," Shahedullah Shahed told AFP. Another police was wounded in the blast.
The spokesman blamed the attack on the enemies of Afghanistan, a term used to refer to the Taliban who are waging an insurgency against the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai after being ousted from power in 2001.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) meanwhile said one of its soldiers died after an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday. A spokesman for the separate US-led force said the soldier was a US national and was killed in Nuristan province.
The US military spokesman said the trooper was killed near Bargi Matal, a district which was recaptured by Afghan security forces on Sunday, three days after the Taliban seized it in an attack.
The defence ministry said the bodies of four insurgents were found after the rebels were pushed back from the mountainous district.
"In a rapid operation, the Afghan national army along with other security forces recaptured the Bargi Matal district on Sunday. A search and clean-up operation continues around the district," the ministry said in a statement.
It said Afghan troops did not suffer any casualties but did not mention the US fatality, in accordance with their policy.
Military casualties have surged in recent weeks as about 4,000 US Marines and thousands of British and Afghan forces battle their way into Taliban strongholds in the south in separate assaults launched about three weeks ago.
Fifteen British soldiers have been killed so far this month, eight of whom died in the deadliest 24 hours for British forces in decades.
The surge in casualties has raised the British death toll in Afghanistan to 184, surpassing the number killed in the Iraq campaign, and raising questions in Britain about tactics and strategy.
According to the independent www.icasualties-org website, which tracks military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, around 195 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year without counting the latest deaths.
There are about 90,000 international troops, mainly US, British and Canadian, deployed in Afghanistan to help Kabul defeat an insurgency being waged by the remnants of the Taliban who were in power between 1996 and 2001.
The troops have launched several assaults against the rebels mainly in the southern province of Helmand — the flashpoint in the Taliban insurgency — in the run up to the war-scarred nation's presidential elections, due on August 20.
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