Taliban militants have killed a tribal elder in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Sunday, according to DPA. The elder was shot dead in the Yahiakhel district of Paktika province close to border with Pakistan on Saturday night, provincial governor Mohammad Akram Khepilwak said. Khepilwak said that the tribal chief was killed in his house "by Taliban because he was supporting the Afghan government." Taliban militants, who lost power in late 2001 in a US-led military invasion, have killed several Afghan clerics and tribal chiefs after accusing them of assisting the Afghan government and foreign forces in the country. In a separate incident, US-led coalition forces killed a militant and arrested seven others in south-eastern Khost province on Saturday, the US military said in a statement. The militants belonged to the Haqqani group, an associated rebel network of Taliban militants, the statement said, adding that multiple AK-47s and hand grenades were also seized during the operation. The US-led NATO alliance said on Sunday that one of their International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers had died of unknown causes. The statement did not disclose the nationality of the deceased soldier. An investigation into the cause of the death is underway, it said. The soldier died a day after two other ISAF soldiers were killed in eastern Afghanistan when their patrol vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb blast on Saturday.
