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Published 14 Nov, 2010 09:06pm

NATO: 5 service members killed in Afghanistan

The strikes, which come a day after Taliban fighters stormed a NATO base in eastern Afghanistan, show the insurgents' fighting spirit has not been broken despite a surge of U.S. troops and firepower.

Also Sunday, the Afghan president's office said the former ambassador-designate to Pakistan, who was seized by gunmen two years ago in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, has been released and is back home safe.

NATO said three coalition service members were killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan. The international military coalition did not provide further details or the nationalities of the dead service members.

In the south, a roadside bomb killed a Danish soldier and wounded an interpreter, Denmark's military said. The are some 700 Danish troops in Afghanistan, based mainly in Helmand province. A British soldier was also killed Sunday while on patrol in Helmand, Britain's Defense Ministry said.

Sunday's deaths brought to 31 the number of coalition service members who have died in Afghanistan so far this month.

Insurgents also killed three Afghan policemen, who died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Uruzgan province in the south, said Gov. Khudi Rahim. Two other policemen were wounded in the blast in Tarin Kot district, he said.

Tens of thousands of Afghan and coalition troops are pressing insurgents throughout southern and eastern Afghanistan, and militants are retaliating with attacks on government workers and others aligned with the international troops.

A bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded in a marketplace in the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province, just east of the Pakistan border, killing two people and wounding 10, said district government chief Abdul Ghani.

Also in Nangahar province, a bomb placed in a wheelbarrow exploded in the provincial capital of Jalalabad, killing one person and wounding nine others, including six children and two women, the Interior Ministry said.

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