KABUL • A NATO soldier was killed in action in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, military forces said, while more than a dozen insurgents were killed in a battle involving air strikes in the south.
The International Security Assistance Force soldier was killed in the eastern province of Paktia, which borders Pakistan, the NATO-led
alliance said.
It gave no details on the incident. ISAF, made up of soldiers from 40 nations, does not release nationalities of troops who die.
On Thursday, troops with the separate US-led coalition came under attack while on a mission to "disrupt Taliban support" in the southernmost district of Garmser, where US Marines and British forces are
also operating.
"Coalition forces responded with small arms and air strikes, killing several of their attackers," it said. A spokeswoman said separately "more than a dozen insurgents" were slain.
The coalition forces had been operating separate from the Marines and British soldiers on an ISAF mission in Garmser for nearly two weeks.
The district, only partially in government control, is said to be a key route for Taliban reinforcements and resupplies from Pakistan.
Taliban fighters meanwhile attacked security forces about 150 kilometres from Kabul, on the main road linking the capital with the key southern city of Kandahar,
police said.
Two private security guards were killed, Ghazni province police chief Khan Mohammad Mujahed said.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahed, said one of his group's men also died.
Meanwhile, in the eastern city of Jalalabad, police and a government official said on condition of anonymity that gunmen had stormed the house of prominent parliamentarian Hazrat Ali late Thursday and killed his father.
They took away with them three women and four children, they said.
US-backed Ali, one of the strongest power brokers in eastern Afghanistan, was involved the 2001 US-led assault that drove the Taliban from power. He also played a role in the Tora Bora operation that failed to stop Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from escaping and is linked to the country's booming opium trade.
