KABUL, Dec 23: Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi held talks on Sunday with President Hamid Karzai and the commander of a Nato force involved in an international effort against Afghanistan’s growing and deadly insurgency.

Prodi’s Christmastime visit follows trips on Saturday by the leaders of France and Australia, who also have troops in Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) working to combat the Taliban-led insurgency.

The Italian leader met ISAF commander US General Dan McNeill, a force spokesman said without being able to give details of their discussions.

Photographers were later able to take pictures of Prodi with Karzai at the presidential palace although details of their meetings were also not released.

Italy has lost 10 soldiers in Afghanistan, one of them an intelligence officer wounded when Italian and British commandos freed him and a colleague from capture by rebels in September.

The officer later died of his injuries.

Ten other people died in the raid — nine of the abductors, said by Afghan police to be Taliban rebels, and an Afghan interpreter.—AFP