In the latest bloodshed blamed on Taliban rebels who recently vowed to step up attacks against the Western-backed government, a district governor and his grown-up sons were ambushed and killed in the east, the interior ministry said.

Mohammad Nader, governor of the Omna district in the eastern province of Paktika, was travelling home with his family near the Pakistan border when armed insurgents attacked, the ministry said.

The governor exchanged fire with his attackers but it was unclear whether the assailants suffered any casualties, it added.

The interior ministry and local government in Paktika blamed the attack on the Taliban, who have strongholds in the province along the porous border with Pakistan, where militants have carved out safe havens in the mountains.

Elsewhere in Paktia, Afghan security forces backed by NATO troops and air power killed at least 15 insurgents in the early hours, the alliance said.

The insurgents were killed in air strikes and gun battles after attacking the combined troops during a security patrol, the statement said.

"After a five-hour fire fight, (troops) conducted an assessment of the area, finding 15 dead insurgents, numerous small arms and a mortar system," the NATO statement said.

Attack helicopters and jet fighters engaged the rebels but neither Afghan nor NATO troops suffered casualties, it added.

Further north, a rocket slammed into a wheatfield in the eastern province of Kunar, which also lies on the Pakistani border, killing a beggar, provincial officials told AFP.

It was not clear who fired the rocket but similar attacks in the past have been blamed on Taliban insurgents.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force said later that seven civilians were killed in insurgent mortar attacks around the town of Asadabad in what appeared to be the same incident.

It did not identify the dead but said the wounded included children.

Meanwhile, an Afghan border policeman and three insurgents were killed in an exchange of fire initiated by the Taliban attackers in the eastern province of Nangarhar, said Mohammad Zaman Mamozai, the local border police chief.

The policemen were collecting water from the river when Taliban attacked. "We returned fire, one police and three terrorists were killed," he told AFP.

In the centre of the country, the Afghan and US militaries said they killed four Al-Qaeda-linked militants and detained 10 others during operations against extremist Islamists in Logar province.

The suspects were killed when troops looking for members of the radical Haqqani network raided compounds south of the capital Kabul, they said.

The network, part of the Taliban, was established by Afghan Soviet resistance commander Jalaluddin Haqqani but is now believed to be led by his sons, notably Siraj Haqqani, and has carried out attacks in Kabul.

There are more than 70,000 foreign troops based in Afghanistan, helping the government fight an increasingly deadly Taliban insurgency.

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