AFP - A US-led coalition soldier died of injuries he suffered in battle and six Afghan elders were gunned down Sunday to end one of the bloodiest weeks in years in insurgency-hit Afghanistan.

The soldier succumbed to his wounds a day after the battle with insurgents in Kapisa province north of the capital Kabul, the military said.

It followed the deaths announced Saturday of six soldiers from a separate NATO-led force in the eastern mountains of Afghanistan and together increased to 201 the number of foreign soldiers killed in the country this year.

Although the nationalities of the casualties in the past two days have not been officially released, most of the troops in the east and in the coalition are US nationals.

In a separate incident Sunday, unknown gunmen on motorbikes shot dead six pro-government tribal elders as they were going to a prayer service in western Herat province, provincial police chief Juma Khan Adil said.

The gunmen opened fire on the elders as they were travelling by vehicle in Gozara district, he told AFP.

"The elders were going to the mosque. The armed men opened fire on their vehicle and killed six of them," he said. A seventh man was injured.

The police chief was unable to say who might have been behind the killing but similar such incidents have in the past been blamed on Taliban insurgents who target people associated with or who support the government.

One Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, however denied his group was involved in killing the elders.

Ahmadi did say however that the Taliban was behind a suicide bombing that injured up to five civilians in southern Helmand province.

Local officials said the bombing was aimed at a NATO-led convoy but it was not hit.

The Afghan defence ministry said the bomber, who was on foot, blew himself up among a group of Afghan soldiers handing food out to widows.

Elsewhere in the south, two policemen were killed in a late-night attack on their checkpost in the southern province of Zabul, a police official said. Another officer was missing following the clash.

A soldier was also killed and two of his colleagues wounded in a bomb blast Saturday in the eastern province of Khost, the defence ministry said.

Small attacks with few casualties are a routine element of the Taliban-led insurgency that has picked up steam in recent years and, according to Western military officials, is being joined by a growing number of foreign fighters.

But a massive suicide blast in the north on Tuesday that killed nearly 80 people, 59 of them children, was the worst to hit troubled Afghanistan.

The previous deadliest killed 35 people in Kabul in June.

The Taliban has denied involvement, as it has done previously in incidents that have taken a high civilian toll. A radical faction loyal to former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has also denied responsibility.

The Taliban have however regularly threatened to take their campaign into the normally calm north, and to step up their use of suicide bombings.

The insurgency launched in late 2001 following the Taliban's ouster has been its deadliest this year, with nearly 6,000 people dead, mostly rebels but also including hundreds of civilians.

There are other groups involved in the daily violence in Afghanistan, some also following an extremist ideology while others are linked to the opium trade or are carrying out attacks for reasons of personal enmity or power.

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