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7 US, 3 NATO troops killed in Afghanistan

* Eight Afghan policemen, 21 Taliban killed in border clash
* Troops kill 27 suspected Taliban in Gereshk district

KABUL/JALALABAD/KHOST: Bombs and bullets killed seven American troops while three NATO troops died in a helicopter crash in one of the deadliest days for foreign troops in Afghanistan, officials said on Tuesday.

Four of the deaths on Monday came in an attack on a team of US military trainers in the relatively peaceful north, Navy Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo, a US military spokesman said. Separately, Taliban claimed on a website that they were holding an American soldier whom the US military says the Taliban might have captured last week. The Taliban statement, however, did not include any proof, such as a picture or the soldier’s name. Obama has ordered 21,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan. Two Americans were killed in a roadside blast in southern Afghanistan, Naranjo said. And another American soldier died of injuries in a gunfight with the Taliban on Monday in the east, a US military spokesman said.

Also in the south, two Canadian and a Briton serving with the NATO-led force were killed on Monday when their helicopter crashed in Zabul province, said a spokesman for the military alliance, Lt Commander Chris Hall. The helicopter crashed on takeoff from a base in the southern Afghan province. Two Canadians were also injured, Reuters reported.

“An airwing flight safety investigation is underway and it has determined that the crash did not occur as a result of enemy fire,” Major Luc Gaudet a spokesman for NATO said. The crash comes as thousands of US Marines and hundreds of other NATO troops as well as Afghan forces launched an operation last week to wrest control of several districts of southern Helmand from Taliban control.

Border clash: Meanwhile, fierce fighting erupted near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan in which eight policemen and 21 Taliban were killed, AFP quoted a provincial governor. Nuristan Governor Jamaluddin Badar said the Taliban had arrived from across the frontier and local Afghan villagers had joined the border police in trying to drive them out in battles that continued for hours. “Up till now 21 Taliban and eight police were killed,” Badar said.

Fourteen of the Taliban were killed when a rocket hit the vehicle they were travelling in, he said. Afghanistan has long blamed insurgents based across the border for a growing insurgency led by the Taliban. A new US strategy to tackle the mounting violence has heaped more pressure on Pakistan to deal with the Taliban on its soil.

Operation: Separately, troops killed 27 suspected Taliban in southern Afghanistan, the Afghan army said. They were killed in fighting with Afghan and NATO-led troops in Gereshk district, the Afghan army corps commander for the south said. “Fighting erupted during which 27 of the enemy were killed,” General Sher Muhammad Zazai told AFP. Thousands of British troops are pushing into insurgent strongholds in the area, which is near Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, while about 4,000 Marines are operating in the south of the troubled province. Meanwhile, a man hurled a hand grenade into a crowd of people in Afghanistan’s eastern city of Khost, killing at least one person and wounding nearly 30 others, officials said. The motive for the attack was unclear. “A man threw a hand grenade in front of a shop. So far, we know that one person has been killed and 29 other people have been wounded,” provincial government spokesman Kochai Nasery told AFP. agencies

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