Afghan fighting rages

Six American soldiers also were wounded. The latest bloodletting comes just days after a 24-hour storm of violence across Afghanistan killed some 120 people. The fighting was among the heaviest since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 and has raised fears for this country's future.

Two French commandos were killed and a third was wounded in combat on Saturday in Afghanistan, a French military source told AFP.

"Two French special forces soldiers were killed and one wounded in Afghanistan during fierce fighting on Saturday morning," the source said on condition of anonymity.

He did not say how or where the soldiers were killed.

The fiercest fighting erupted late Friday in Helmand province, the country's main opium poppy growing region, where drug profits are believed to fund the insurgency. Six militants and an Afghan soldier were killed, said Gen. Rehmatullah Raufi, the head of the Afghan military's southern region.

It then continued into Saturday morning, with rebels ambushing a large army convoy, setting off a shootout that left 15 Taliban and four Afghan soldiers dead, an army commander said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Hundreds of reinforcements were deployed to the area and the rebels fled on motorbikes and foot, he said.

Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi confirmed that four soldiers had been killed, and he said 20 rebels were either dead or wounded.

Militants ambushed another army convoy in Zabul province Saturday, and four fighters were killed as the troops returned fire, Raufi said.

In the western city of Herat, meanwhile, an explosion ripped through a vehicle carrying former warlord Amanullah Khan, wounding him, said Gulam Sarwar Haydari, the city's deputy police chief. It was not immediately clear what caused the blast.

The US soldier was killed in southern Uruzgan province Friday, the coalition said. The six wounded soldiers were in stable condition.

In the past year, Uruzgan has been the site of some of the heaviest fighting in Afghanistan, but militants suffered high losses in multiple battles with coalition forces, and the violence there has subsided in recent months.

At least 235 members of the US military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the US Defence Department.