Afghan clashes kill three NATO soldiers

Taliban insurgents killed three NATO troops and an Afghan soldier in two separate clashes in Afghanistan, the alliance and an Afghan official said yesterday.

Two US soldiers from the NATO force in Afghanistan and the Afghan were killed on Friday in an area of eastern Nuristan province in a clash with Taliban rebels. Thirteen NATO soldiers were wounded in the fighting.

The alliance said 24 insurgents were also killed in the clashes, close to the border with Pakistan. Fighting was continuing yesterday morning, provincial governor Tameem Nuristani said, but he declined to give further details.

A Taliban spokesman said only three insurgents were killed in the clashes and said the casualties of NATO and Afghan troops were higher than reported.

During the fighting, a NATO airstrike hit a civilian vehicle in the Kamdish district of Nuristan province killing four people and wounding seven others, said a provincial official who declined to be named.

"Eleven passengers were travelling in a pick-up truck... to Kamdish when it came under attack from the air," the official said. "Among the seven wounded civilians, two of them are in a serious condition."

President Hamid Karzai has warned international forces in Afghanistan that civilian casualties risk alienating support for the presence of foreign troops in his country.

Separately, four Afghan police were killed in an ambush yesterday on a road in Logar province, which lies to the south of the capital Kabul, provincial police said.