Three Nato troops die; six abducted Afghans killed

A spate of attacks across Afghanistan on Sunday killed three Nato service members, an Afghan government official and three police officers, officials said. Meanwhile, officials said that insurgents have killed six Afghan deminers from a group of 32 that was kidnapped last week in the country's south-west.
Bodies of five of the missing deminers were recovered and local officials were able to confirm that at least one more was killed, said Farah province's deputy police chief, Mohammad Ghaws Malyar. All of the dead had been beheaded, he said.
The group of Afghan de-miners were ambushed July 6 while driving to a work site in the province. Two have been released with the help of local tribal elders, Malyar said.
Meanwhile, a roadside bomb attack in southern Helmand province killed a Danish soldier who was on patrol, while two other Nato service members were killed in insurgent attacks in the south and east, according to Nato and the Danish government. The Danish army aid the soldier was airlifted to a field hospital but his life couldn't be saved. Denmark is to start withdrawing its combat units this year and gradually shift its role into training Afghan forces.
Nato did not provide details or the nationalities of the other two dead service members. The coalitir this year, 286 international troopers have been killed in Afghanistan.
To the north-west, an Afghan district government's top official was killed by a roadside bomb while drivice, passed by. Dawood was killed in the blast and four others in the vehicle were wounded, said Sharafuddin Majidi, a provincial government spokesman. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but it was characteristic of insurgent strikes against government officials seen as collaborators with the international forces in the country.
And in the volatile southern city of Kandahar, a roadside bomb killed three police officers early Sunday, said General Abdul Raziq, the provincial police chief.
The attacks followed at least two sizable battles with insurgents on Saturday. Four Taliban fighters were killed in daylong fighting in Ghazni province in the east, said Sayed Abrar Agha, the head of a group that co-ordinates provincial security operations with international forces.