October 26, 2007	Friday	Shawwal 13, 1428

KABUL, Oct 25: An Australian soldier was among 25 people reported on Thursday to have been killed in battles in Afghanistan as Kabul’s international allies called for more help to fight extremists here.

The soldier was killed in an ambush while on patrol on Thursday in the southern province of Uruzgan, the Australian Defence Force said in a statement.

It was Australia’s third combat fatality since it sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq in the US-led ‘war on terror’ in the wake of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.

This year, 186 international soldiers have died while in Afghanistan to fight back a growing insurgency led by hardcore Islamic militants from the Taliban and other radical outfits such as Al Qaeda.

In other incidents, insurgents ambushed an Afghan army convoy 50 kilometres north of Kabul on Wednesday in an attack that left five soldiers and three militants dead, the defence ministry said in a statement.

There have been several major battles near the capital in recent weeks as the insurgents appear to be gaining ground in areas outside usual hotspots in the east and south.

Separately, four Afghan policemen were killed in the southern province of Kandahar overnight when militants ambushed a police patrol with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, a district governor said.

And 10 militants were killed and 14 wounded in a firefight with police in the Daychopan district of restive Zabul province on Wednesday, provincial governor Fazel Bary said. Three police were also wounded, he said.—AFP