Three foreign soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan were killed in separate attacks on Saturday, NATO said, while a woman and two children died in an operation against Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents.
NATO also reported the death of one of its soldiers on Friday, bringing to 447 the number to die in the Afghan war so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on that kept by the icasualties.org website.
The identities of the dead soldiers were not revealed, in accordance with NATO policy.
Statements from the alliance said three of the soldiers died in separate insurgent attacks in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban-led insurgency is concentrated. One died on Friday, the two others on Saturday, it said.
Another died Saturday, a separate statement said, following a Taliban-style bomb attack.
ISAF said in a separate statement that a civilian woman and two children were "accidentally killed" on Friday in an operation in western Farah province, another insurgency hotspot.
Afghan and coalition forces were pursuing a "Taliban foreign fighter facilitator... known to traffic foreign fighters and weapons from Iran and associate with senior Taliban and Al-Qaeda leadership", it said.
"During the operation, six insurgents were killed and several suspected insurgents were detained.
"Also during the operation, a civilian woman and two children were accidentally killed when a coalition force air weapons team engaged the insurgents," it said.
Civilian casualties are a sensitive issue in Afghanistan, often blamed on the presence of foreign forces, now numbering 141,000 from NATO and the United States and set to peak within weeks at 150,000.
The United Nations reported this month that 1,271 civilians died in violence between January and June this year, with the Taliban responsible for 76 percent of the deaths.
The Taliban largely deploys makeshift bombs, known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs, which kill and maim indiscriminately. Suicide bomb attacks and targeted assassinations are the other mainstays of the insurgent arsenal.
In a separate statement ISAF said that five civilians were killed in northern Afghanistan when an IED detonated Saturday. Two others were injured, it said.
The ferocity of the war has been intensifying since the United States began deploying an extra 30,000 troops as part of President Barack Obama's surge in support of a counter-insurgency campaign aimed at speeding an end to the conflict.
Most of the new arrivals have been heading to the southern hotspots of Kandahar and Helmand provinces, regarded as home turf by the Taliban.
The number of troops in the country is set to peak at 150,000 in coming weeks.
Officials in Helmand province said six police officers were killed late Friday by men who approached their post posing as guests and then opened fire.
"Men pretending to be guests came to a police checkpoint in Nahri Sarraj district last night," provicial government spokesman Daud Ahmadi told AFP.
The assailants also stole police equipment, including firearms and vehicles, he said.
Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the killings, saying by telephone from an undisclosed location that the insurgent gunmen had killed seven police officers.
The Taliban regularly exaggerate the scales of their operations.
Copyright 2010 AFP South Asian Edition
