6 Canadian troops killed in Afghanistan

A roadside bomb tore through a NATO vehicle Wednesday, killing six Canadian soldiers and their Afghan interpreter in a southern region of Afghanistan that has seen recent heavy fighting, officials said.

The blast in Kandahar province's Zhari district raised the number of foreign soldiers killed in the country this year to at least 102, officials said. Brig. Gen. Tim Grant, the head of Canadian forces in Afghanistan, said the six slain troops were Canadian.

The attack was the deadliest against foreign troops in Afghanistan since May 13, when seven troops were killed _ five Americans, a Canadian and a Briton _ in a crash of their Chinook helicopter in Helmand province. Officials said at the time that it appeared a rocket-propelled grenade might have brought down the aircraft.

Afghan and NATO forces clashed with Taliban militants in Zhari this week, leaving 33 suspected insurgents dead on Tuesday, the provincial governor said. Seven Afghan police died in a roadside bomb explosion in Zhari on Monday. The region was the site of one of NATO's largest-ever operations last fall, and remains highly volatile.

Also Wednesday, German authorities said a German citizen was believed to have been kidnapped in Afghanistan. The man was not identified, but a German Foreign Ministry spokesman said he'd been missing since June 28. German Defense Minister Franz-Josef Jung told ZDF television the man was employed by a road-building company.

An Afghan official said a German man was seen last week in the western Farah province's Delaram district and that it's possible the kidnappers were robbers. District chief Mohammad Shafiq said the kidnappers had contacted village elders in Delaram on Wednesday and said they planned to discuss the man's release on Thursday.

Southern Afghanistan has seen fierce fighting in the past several weeks. More than 2,900 people _ mostly militants _ have been killed in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press tally of numbers provided by Western and Afghan officials.

Of the at least 102 foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, 46 were Americans, 18 Britons and 22 Canadians.

Also in the south, militants battled Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops in separate clashes that left 20 militants and one policeman dead, officials said Wednesday.

Militants attacked at least three police checkpoints in Ghazni province Tuesday, and ensuing gunbattles left 13 militants and one officer dead, said. Gen. Ali Shah Ahmadzai, the provincial police chief.

In Zabul province, Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces clashed with suspected Taliban militants Tuesday in Shahjoy district, leaving seven militants dead and six others wounded, said Ali Kheil, a spokesman for the province's governor.

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Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Melissa Eddy in Berlin contributed to this report.