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Five international soldiers killed, four wounded in Afghanistan

Other News Materials 21 June 2008 12:43 (UTC +04:00)

Five US-led coalition soldiers were killed and four other soldiers and an Afghan civilian were wounded in separate roadside attacks in Afghanistan, the military said on Saturday.

Four coalition soldiers were killed and two others were "seriously" wounded on Saturday in a roadside attack in southern Kandahar province, the US military said in a statement.

The deaths of the soldiers followed a bloody battle in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province on Wednesday between Taliban insurgents and Afghan forces backed by NATO soldiers, reported dpa.

The fierce battle that left more than one hundred Taliban insurgents dead and wounded came after several hundreds of Taliban infiltrated the district.

The militants planted roadside bombed in roads and gardens in the district before fleeing the area after thousands of Afghan and NATO forces moved into the district.

Meanwhile, another US-led coalition soldier was killed, two other soldiers and a local civilian were wounded in another roadside attack in the south-eastern province of Farah on Friday evening, a separate US military statement said.

The statements did not disclose the nationalities of the deceased soldiers. Most of the soldiers serving under the coalition forces banner are Americans.

Taliban-led militants have stepped up their insurgency mainly in the southern region recently, killing a large number of international forces mostly in roadside and suicide attacks, both tactics widely believed to be have been copied from Iraqi insurgents.

One coalition soldier and his Afghan interpreter were killed in a suicide attack in southern Helmand province on Friday, while four British forces, including the first female soldier were killed on Wednesday in the same province.

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