British soldiers, policeman killed in Afghanistan

KANDAHAR - A blast killed one police officer and injured 15 other people Saturday in southern Afghanistan, where two NATO-led British soldiers had also been killed in an earlier insurgent attack, officials said.

The blast - triggered by a bicycle bomb and detonated remotely - took place Saturday morning in Kandahar, the capital city of the province of the same name, according to Zalmai Ayoubi, spokesman for the provincial governor.

“The attack killed one policeman and injured 15 civilians,” Ayoubi said, adding that children were among those injured.

The bomb was detonated as police officers were getting out of a vehicle close to the governor’s office in the centre of the restive city, he said.

Afghan and NATO troops are expected to push the militants out of districts surrounding the city in a major operation due to begin in the summer. The offensive is set to be launched when thousands of extra US forces arrive in the volatile region.

In a separate incident, two NATO-led British soldiers were killed by small arms fire during a clash with suspected Taliban insurgents in Nahr-e Saraj, a district in the neighbouring province of Helmand, the British Defence Ministry said on its website Saturday.

The NATO military in Kabul also confirmed the deaths of the soldiers in the attack, which took place Friday.

More than 9,000 British soldiers are stationed in Helmand.

The deaths increased to 230 the total number of NATO troops killed in the Afghan conflict so far this year, according to ICasualties.org, an independent website that tracks military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. The number includes 143 US and 47 British fatalities.

There are more than 120,000 NATO and US troops currently based in Afghanistan. The total number of foreign troops is set to peak at 150,000 by summer, with two thirds of them from the US.