Nato soldier, 8 Afghans killed in rebel attacks

KABUL (AFP) - A soldier with the NATO-led force in Afghanistan was killed in a rebel attack while ambushes and bomb blasts linked to an extremist insurgency killed eight Afghans, authorities said Monday.


NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the trooper was killed on Sunday in an attack in eastern Afghanistan. It did not give details.


The latest casualty brings the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year to at least 218, according to an AFP tally, with no official figure released from a single authority. Nearly 220 died last year.


In another attack, gunmen opened fire on the head of a provincial council, similar to a provincial parliament, near his home in the southern city of Kandahar late Sunday, a governor told AFP.


Mohammad Hashim Granai, chief of the Zabul provincial council, survived the attack on his vehicle but four of his bodyguards were killed, Zabul governor Delbar Jan Arman told AFP. "Luckily he was not hurt," he said. In rural eastern Paktika province meanwhile a bomb struck a vehicle Monday killed two civilians and wounding two others, police said.


And Taliban attacked a police outpost in Ghazni province overnight and killed two policemen, taking one away with them, an official said. International forces also bombed a Taliban group in Ghazni and killed five rebels, a district governor told AFP.