KANDAHAR, May 20: Suspected Taliban rebels ambushed two Afghan army convoys in the country’s south, sparking gunbattles that killed 25 militants, five Afghan soldiers and a civilian, the Afghan military said on Saturday.

Fighting also erupted between the insurgents and US forces in the south and an American soldier was killed and six others wounded, the US military said.

The latest bloodletting comes just days after a 24-hour storm of violence across Afghanistan killed some 120 people. The fighting was among the heaviest since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 and has raised fears for this country’s future.

The fiercest fighting was in Helmand, the country’s main opium poppy-growing region.—AP