French soldiers, Taliban die in Afghan fighting

KABUL, Aug 26 (Reuters) Two French soldiers have been killed in an ambush in Afghanistan, the French Defence Ministry said on Saturday, the latest casualties in the bloodiest stretch of violence since the Taliban were overthrown five years ago.

A ministry official said the soldiers were on patrol with special forces on Friday when a bomb exploded and ''extremists'' opened fire with light weapons in an ambush 38 km (24 miles) from Mihtarlam, capital of the eastern province of Laghman.

Two other French soldiers were wounded but were in stable condition. Foreign forces said they killed 22 rebels in air and artillery strikes on Friday in the south, where the Taliban resurgence is at its strongest.

Afghanistan is going through its bloodiest phase since US-led troops drove the Taliban from power after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

About 2,000 people, most of them militants but also including civilians, Afghan troops, aid workers and more than 90 foreign soldiers, have been killed in violence this year.

VIOLENT MIX The violence involves a mixture of opposition to foreign and government forces, tribal wars, the illegal drugs trade and crime.

The insurgency is concentrated in the south and east, mostly in provinces bordering Pakistan, the Taliban's former backer.

Since mid-2003, about 200 French special forces personnel have been fighting the Taliban under US command. France this week pledged 2,000 troops to a UN force in Lebanon intended to keep a truce between Israel and Hizbollah.

On Friday, US-led coalition forces killed 15 Taliban, including a commander, in an air strike in Uruzgan province in the south, the US military said in a statement.

Dutch Prime Minister Yan-Peter Balkenede visited his troops in Uruzgan and later called for more international pressure to halt the flow of militants across the porous border.

''The situation in Uruzgan is linked to people coming from Pakistan, it is true,'' he told a news conference in Kabul. ''If these issues are not ... solved, then indeed, you have a serious problem.'' Pakistan has massed about 70,000 soldiers along the border and taken heavy casualties fighting militants and hunting Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.

But Afghanistan has accused it of doing too little and, in some cases, still actively helping its former allies.

In his successful parliamentary renomination hearing, Afghan intelligence chief Amruallah Saleh said Islamabad ''has not given up its interference and aggression'' and that the enemy's training camps and organisational and financial networks lay in Pakistan.

NATO forces also killed seven rebels in an artillery strike in the southern province of Helmand on Friday.

The Taliban could not be contacted for immediate comment.

NATO last month took over security in the restive southern region -- which includes Afghanistan's biggest drug producing area, Helmand -- from the US-led coalition in the alliance's biggest ground operation in its history. It is also due to take over from US forces in the east by year-end.

REUTERS PDM RK2132