Kabul | May 6

AFP - Two Italian soldiers were killed in a bomb blast in Kabul Friday while five Afghans, including a tribal chief, died in the restive south in the latest violence blamed on Taliban rebels, officials said.

The Afghan army also said it had ambushed and killed four fighters from the Taliban movement, which has been waging an insurgency since they were removed from government in late 2001 by a US-led invasion.

An Italian military convoy with the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan was struck by a bomb while on patrol in the southeast of the city, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

"Four were injured and two died," Staff Sergeant Brian Lamar said.