The soldiers, members of NATO's US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), were killed in two separate attacks and a crash, according to a NATO statement.

"Three ISAF servicemembers died today as a result of a vehicle accident in southern Afghanistan," the statement said.

"In a separate operation, one ISAF servicemember died today following an improvised explosive device attack in southern Afghanistan. Another ISAF servicemember died today as a result of an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan."

A NATO spokeswoman told AFP that four of the five dead were US troops. She did not give the nationality of the fifth.

The deaths follow the killings of two ISAF soldiers on Friday by small-arms fire in the militant-infested south, where international forces are fighting an increasingly deadly insurgency led by the Taliban.

Three policemen also died when their car hit a roadside bomb, the weapon of choice of the Taliban, in the northern province of Kunduz, the interior ministry said earlier.

And two civilians and another officer were killed by an improvised explosive device targeting police in the Taliban spiritual homeland of Kandahar, the provincial government said.

The bomb wounded 11 civilians, including six children.

The interior ministry announced meanwhile that a suicide bomber on a motorcycle had targeted a NATO convoy in Jalalabad, in the war-torn nation's northeast.

Thirteen Afghan civilians, including five children, were wounded, it said.

Elsewhere two Spanish soldiers sustained minor injuries when they were ambushed by insurgents in the northwest, Spain's defence ministry said.

The Taliban are waging an insurgency to overthrow the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai which is supported by 130,000 international troops.

The insurgency has gained strength in recent years as the rebels have spread their influence beyond their traditional stronghold in the country's south.

Police said Afghan and foreign forces killed 25 Taliban militants in two separate military operations in central Uruzgan province late Saturday.

"Fifteen of them were killed in Charchino and 10 others in Gizab, both Taliban-troubled regions in the province," Juma Gul Hemat, the provincial police chief, told AFP.

"Their bodies were left in the area. We handed them to the elders for burial."

According to an AFP tally, based on one kept by the independent website icasualties.org, 235 foreign troops have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year. Last year was the deadliest yet, with 520 killed.

Around two-thirds of this year's casualties are American. US forces make up the bulk of the 130,000 foreign troops based in Afghanistan.

NATO, US and Afghan troops are preparing their biggest offensive against the rebels in the southern province of Kandahar, with foreign troop numbers set to peak at 150,000 by August.

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