KABUL, Nov 10: Taliban killed six troops from the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) and three Afghan soldiers in an ambush in eastern Afghanistan on Friday.

“Six Isaf soldiers and three Afghan army men were killed by Taliban insurgents in an ambush yesterday,” Brig-Gen Carlos Branco told a news conference here on Saturday.

At least eight Isaf troops and 11 Afghan soldiers were wounded in the fighting which began when militants ambushed their patrol with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire as they were returning from a meeting with local elders.

A suicide bomber killed one civilian and wounded three other people in Kunduz on Saturday, an official said.

In the west of the country, Afghan troops backed by Isaf soldiers retook the district of Gulistan, captured by the Taliban nearly two weeks ago, the defence ministry said.

A number of Taliban, among them a commander, were killed in the fighting and the rest of the militants fled to mountains, it said in a statement.

Some 20 Taliban were killed or wounded and another 20 detained, the provincial police chief said.

“We have credible intelligence that Iranians and Pakistanis are fighting alongside the Taliban insurgents,” Farah police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang told Reuters. “We have also captured a large amount of brand new Iranian-made ammunition recently smuggled to Afghanistan,” he said.

In the northwest, the Afghan army said it had killed or wounded 50 Taliban, captured 20 more and forced the rest to flee an area straddling the border between Faryab and Badghis provinces.—Reuters