Suicide blast kills French soldier

(CNN) -- A suicide car bomb attack on a military convoy killed a French soldier serving under NATO's International Security Forces during a routine patrol in Kabul early Friday, the French Defense Ministry told CNN.

Earlier, an ISAF spokesman confirmed a NATO soldier was killed and eight Afghan civilians were wounded in the bombing in the capital's western suburbs.

Following the blast, the ministry said a French team was sent to secure the area around the site and the incident was being assessed.

To the south, a combined team of U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces killed approximately 40 Taliban militants in southern Helmand province during a Friday operation, the coalition command press center said.

No troops were hurt or killed during the operation, which aimed at deterring "hostile activities" in the province's Garmsir district, according to the coalition.

Soldiers used precision-guided munitions, "killing a large number of combatants," and coalition spokesman Maj. Christopher Belcher said "one of the largest caches of weapons found to date" was uncovered in a building.

"Several rooms were found filled with small-arms, explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and large caliber ammunition," Belcher said.

Two buildings and weapons caches were destroyed to "prevent their future use."

TheNATO-led International Security Assistance has raised its troop level to almost 40,000 in the face of the Taliban's stepped-up attacks. The United States has 13,000 soldiers in a separate counterinsurgency force.

Britain, which has 7,000 troops in the NATO mission, reported that two of its soldiers died Thursday when their armored vehicle went off the road in southern Afghanistan. It said no enemy forces were involved. Eighty-one British military personnel have died in Afghanistan since November 2001. E-mail to a friend

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