The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Kabul

Two NATO soldiers and their interpreter were killed when their vehicle was blown up in Afghanistan Saturday while officials reported that 33 Taliban-linked rebels died in new operations.

The two International Security Assistance Force soldiers died with their interpreter when their vehicle struck a bomb in the south, ISAF said.

Another three soldiers were wounded in the blast caused by what the military calls an "improvised explosive device" -- homemade bombs that are among the main threats to security forces here.

The 37-nation ISAF usually does not release the nationalities of its casualties or the provinces where troops are killed. Most of its soldiers in the south are British, Dutch and Canadian.

This year 207 international soldiers have died in Afghanistan, most fighting the resurgent Taliban movement which was in government from 1996 to 2001.

In a separate attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up near an ISAF patrol in the east, killing a civilian and slightly wounding a soldier, the force said. Two other civilians were hurt.

A man claiming to be a Taliban commander said his group was responsible for the bombing in Nangarhar province near the border with Pakistan.

Elsewhere, more than 10 Taliban were killed, police said, in an operation launched Saturday in a heartland of the movement -- the Zahri district of Kandahar province where the movement picked up arms in the early 1990s.

The fighting continued into Saturday evening, Kandahar police chief Sayed Agha Saqeb said.

The US-led coalition, which operates alongside ISAF, announced meanwhile that its soldiers killed 23 fighters in Helmand province, also in the south, Thursday in an operation targeting Taliban weapons suppliers.