(AP)
Updated: 2007-08-26 10:01

KABUL - A string of bombings and gunbattles reported around Afghanistan killed 41 people and left at least six wounded, including two foreigners hurt in a suicide bombing near the capital.

Insurgent violence is running at its highest level since US forces invaded the country in 2001 to oust the hard-line Islamic Taliban rulers, who had harbored al-Qaida leaders following the September 11 attacks.

Most of the violence is concentrated in southern or eastern Afghanistan, where insurgents staged several attacks Saturday, but there have been occasional suicide attacks on Afghan security forces and foreign targets in Kabul.

A suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a convoy of two four-wheel drive Land Cruisers on a main road leading out of the capital Saturday, said Ali Shah Paktaiwal, chief of criminal investigations in the city. Interior Ministry spokesman Zemerai Bashary said two foreigners and four Afghans were injured. He said he did not know the nationalities of the foreigners or the extent of their injuries.

In Kandahar province in the south, insurgents attacked a police patrol with a bomb and then opened fire with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, police officer Umar Khan said. Eight officers were killed and one was missing, he said.

In Ghazni province in the east, police killed 24 militants, two of whom were believed to be Arabs, over the last 24 hours, local police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai said. Five insurgents were also killed in Badghis Province, in the west, since Friday, a police official there said.

Elsewhere in Kandahar, a roadside bomb killed two Afghans guarding a convoy carrying supplies for NATO-led forces, according to provincial police chief Sayed Aqa Saqib. In neighboring Helmand Province, Afghan soldiers shot and killed two suspected Taliban fighters planting a roadside bomb, said police officer Ghulam Wali.

British troops battling Taliban insurgents in southern Helmand Province Friday were hit by a US bomb that killed three soldiers and wounded two after they called for air support. Coalition forces on Saturday defended their reliance on air power in the wake of the deaths, which came amid growing Afghan concerns about civilian deaths from US airstrikes.