Roadside bombs killed seven NATO soldiers in southern Afghanistan, officials said, as militants struck back during the alliance's biggest anti-Taliban offensive. Six of the troops died when one of the bombs struck their vehicle, the alliance said in a statement. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper confirmed that they were Canadian, Canadian Press reported, according to AP. It appeared to be the biggest combat loss for foreign troops in Afghanistan since 2005. Another soldier was injured, NATO said. In a separate incident, a roadside bomb killed one NATO soldier and wounded two others, NATO said. NATO did not released the nationality of those soldiers. Nor did not specify where in the south either of the two attacks took place, or provide other details. The fatalities underline how virulent Afghanistan's Taliban-led resistance remains, more than six years after a U.S.-led invasion drove the hardline militia from power for harboring al-Qaida. The attack on the Canadians appeared to have inflicted the worst toll on foreign troops in a single combat incident since a U.S. helicopter crashed in Kunar in June 2005, after apparently being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. 16 American troops died. The losses came days after more than 1,000 NATO and Afghan troops retook a district in the southern province of Helmand from Taliban militants. The operation to seize Sangin district started late Wednesday and is part of NATO's largest ever offensive in Afghanistan, Operation Achilles, launched last month to push militants from northern Helmand. About 4,500 NATO and 1,000 Afghan forces are in and around Helmand province, the world's largest producer of opium, as part of the operation. In the last several months, Taliban militants and foreign fighters have streamed into the province, according to U.S. and NATO officials. Fighting in Afghanistan typically surges in spring, as warmer weather clears the snow from high passes used by militants to move across the Pakistani border and through the country's formidable mountains. U.S. and NATO commanders have forecast a bloody 2007, despite the presence of some 45,000 foreign troops deployed to bolster the feeble government of President Hamid Karzai. In other fighting Sunday, two Afghan guards were killed and five wounded during a four-hour battle with Taliban militants near the border with Pakistan, the U.S.-led coalition said in a statement. Militants fired mortars and a rocket on a coalition checkpoint in the village of Kakakhel in Paktika province. Troops returned fire and called in an airstrike, which left two militants dead and three others wounded, the statement said. In neighboring Khost province, a gunman riding on the back of a motorcycle opened fire on Afghans working for NATO-led forces, killing two of the men and wounding another, NATO said. In the eastern province of Nangarhar, a suicide car bomber blew himself up next to a U.S.-led coalition convoy, said Ghafor Khan, spokesman for the provincial police chief. A coalition statement said one soldier sustained minor injuries in the incident and had returned to duty. ISAF also said that a U.S. soldier sustained a gunshot wound inside the heavily guarded Kandahar Airfield, NATO's largest base in the south. ISAF did not give details on how he was shot, but said he is in stable condition and the shooting is under investigation. -- SPA
