KABUL, July 25: One US soldier was killed on Monday in heavy fighting that also left an Afghan serviceman and 11 militants dead in south-central Afghanistan, the US military said. About 15 to 30 militants fired on a United States-Afghan patrol with guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades in Uruzgan province, also wounding three American troops and an Afghan soldier, it said in a statement.

“Attack aircraft and helicopters responded to the scene of the incident” west of Deh Rawood in a province known as a Taliban hotbed, the statement said.

Eight militants were captured as US and Afghan forces searched the area, the statement said, and four rocket-propelled grenades, two AK-47 assault rifles and a radio were confiscated.

Violence has escalated ahead of Afghanistan’s Sept 18 parliamentary elections, and the second US troop death in two days raised the American toll from hostile fire in the conflict to 38 this year.—AFP