KABUL, Afghanistan – A homicide car bomb attack against a NATO convoy Saturday killed two soldiers and wounded four others, while fighting in the south killed 16 Taliban militants, officials said.
The bomb attack in the eastern city of Jalalabad hit a contingent of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, the alliance said in a statement.
ISAF did not release the nationalities of the troops involved, but most soldiers in that region are American.
Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the blast also wounded four Afghan civilians and damaged five vehicles.
An operation in the southern province of Kandahar in the last several days killed 16 Taliban fighters, including a group commander, said provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqib. He said no casualties were reported by the Afghan and ISAF forces that carried out the operation in the Panjwayi district.
In neighboring Helmand province, meanwhile, U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces killed "several" militants in the Nahri Sarraj district, a coalition statement said. Militants attacked the combined patrol with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades before the coalition members called in airstrikes, the statement said.
Violence has increased around Afghanistan the last two years, even as more and more international troops have poured into the country. More than 1,500 people have died in insurgency related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count.
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