Taliban kill 5 Western soldiers in Afghanistan

KABUL, Aug 27 (Reuters) Five Western soldiers, including three Americans, were killed in a string of Taliban attacks in eastern and southern Afghanistan, officials said today.

The Americans were killed along with two Afghan soldiers in a Taliban ambush today in Ghazi Abad district of eastern Kunar province, near the border with Pakistan, the district police chief told reporters.

NATO officials in Kabul said earlier that two soldiers had been killed while on patrol yesterday, one in an attack in eastern Afghanistan and the other in the south.

NATO did not identify the victims.

However, the Netherlands' military said a Dutch soldier had been killed overnight by a bomb in southern Afghanistan.

It said the 30-year-old sergeant was in a unit searching for explosives in the province of Uruzgan when an improvised device exploded, Chief of Staff Dick Berlijn told a televised news conference. A 23-year-old corporal was wounded, Berlijn said.

The Netherlands has about 1,700 troops in Afghanistan.

Violence has surged in the past 19 months in Afghanistan where more than 100 Western troops under the command of NATO and the US military have been killed this year while fighting a renewed Taliban-led insurgency.

REUTERS RAR KP1806