Kabul: A NATO soldier has been killed in an attack by insurgents in Afghanistan, the military said Monday, as Afghan authorities reported the deaths of 10 Afghans in separate violence.
The attack on NATO took place in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, the alliance force`s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement, without disclosing the nationality of the dead soldier.
It follows the killing of a British soldier in an explosion while on foot patrol Sunday in the volatile southern province of Helmand.
The latest death brings to 187 the total number of foreign soldiers to die in the Afghan war so far this year, according to an agency tally based on that kept by the icasualties.org website.
Of those, 115 have been Americans and 40 British.
The number of international troops fighting the Taliban-led insurgency is set to peak by August at 150,000 as the war intensifies, concentrated on the southern strongholds of Helmand and neighbouring Kandahar provinces.
Afghanistan`s interior ministry said four police officers were killed when a Taliban-type crude bomb blew up their vehicle Helmand on Sunday.
The police officers were patrolling a volatile area in the province`s Gereshk district, the ministry said in a statement. Two other officers were injured in the blast, it added.
Afghan police are the most vulnerable of Afghanistan`s security forces, lacking the training and equipment of the army yet often called on to act as paramilitary.
In two other attacks blamed on the Taliban in Helmand, six civilians were killed, Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Helmand provincial administration said.
A Taliban rocket aimed at security forces hit a residential home and killed four non-combatants in Marjah district, a former rebel stronghold recaptured by NATO and Afghan troops earlier this year, he said.
In the second attack, two civilians were killed when their car struck another Taliban roadside bomb, Ahmadi told the agency.
Bureau Report
