Kabul- A US-led coalition soldier was killed in a roadside bomb blast in western Afghanistan while six Taliban militants, including a rebel commander, were killed in clashes with Afghan police and coalition forces elsewhere in the country, officials said Friday.

The coalition soldier was killed Friday in a roadside blast in western Afghanistan, the US military said in a statement.

The statement did not reveal the location of the explosion or the nationality of the deceased soldier, but most of the soldiers serving under the command of coalition are from the United States.

Meanwhile, Afghan commandos and US-led coalition forces killed two militants and arrested six others, including a Taliban commander, near Kabul, the US military said in a separate statement.

The combined forces conducted a raid Thursday on the house of a Taliban commander and his associates in the Surobi district, about 50 kilometres east of the capital, a US military statement said.

The forces came under small-arms fire as they searched the compound and returned fire, the statement said.

The statement did not identify the arrested commander but said the joint forces seized two rocket-propelled grenade launchers, three AK-47s and one machine gun.

No Afghan or coalition forces or civilians were killed in the operation, it added.

Taliban militants have recently penetrated several towns close to the capital, posing threats to the country's most important city, where thousands of international forces are stationed.

After their ouster in late 2001, Taliban militants regrouped and turned southern and eastern Afghanistan into their strongholds and waged a bloody insurgency against the Western-backed Afghan government.

In another incident, four Taliban militants, including their commander Mullah Zabiullah, were killed and three wounded Thursday night in a fight with Afghan police in the western province of Ghor, Shah Jahan Noori, provincial police chief said.

He said the militants were trying to plant a roadside bomb in the Pasawand district when police forces spotted them.

Noori said no officers were killed in the two-hour firefight.

More than 4,000 people - mostly insurgents - have been killed in Afghanistan's conflict so far this year. (dpa)