2 French soldiers, 23 Taliban killed in attacks

Taliban also stormed government and police posts in two southern districts, sparking gun battles lasting hours, which left six rebels dead and two policemen missing, Afghan officials said.

The ambush occurred when a bomb struck a French special forces unit patrolling in the eastern province of Laghman on Friday as part of a US-led coalition hunting down Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, the coalition said.

The attackers then opened fire on the soldiers with small arms and machine guns, it said in a statement.

The coalition blamed the attack on "extremists", who could include various anti-government forces. The defence ministry in Paris said the attackers were from the extremist Taliban movement.

Two French soldiers were also wounded in the ambush and were in stable condition at a hospital in the main US military base at Bagram, near Kabul, the coalition said.

The US-led coalition in Afghanistan said Saturday it had killed a known Taliban commander and 15 other militants in a precision air strike on the leadership of the extremist movement.

The rebels, involved in attacks on civilians and security forces, were targeted in an engagement in the southern province of Uruzgan on Friday, it said in a statement.

"Coalition forces engaged Taliban leadership with joint fires, killing a known Taliban commander and 15 other militants," the statement said.

Foreign and Afghan troops are battling an insurgency which has grown each year since the Islamist Taliban government was driven from power in late 2001 for harbouring the al-Qaeda terror network.

Much of the violence is focussed on southern Afghanistan where troops from a Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) took over from the coalition on July 31 and have faced a series of deadly attacks.

Isaf forces spotted a convoy of insurgents moving into position for attack in Helmand province on Friday and called in British aircraft, which bombed the men, killing at least seven, the force said in a statement Saturday.

The strike was in the Musa Qala district, where British and Afghan troops replaced a Danish contingent of 100 soldiers in the past few days.

The base had suffered daily Taliban attacks, a spokesman for the Danish armed forces said in Copenhagen on Thursday, adding that the turnaround was routine.