KABUL, Afghanistan - Officias say a NATO soldier died after being ambushed in southern Afghanistan, while U.S.-led coalition troops killed several militants near Kabul.

A statement from the alliance says the militants fired on a NATO patrol in Kajaki district of Helmand province on Tuesday. The soldier was initially wounded and later died. NATO did not release the nationality of the dead soldier. Most of the troops in Kajaki are British.

Canada currently has about 2,500 troops serving in southern Afghanistan, primarily in nearby Kandahar Province.

More than 2,600 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year in Afghanistan, according to an Associated Press tally of official figures. Monthly death tolls of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan surpassed U.S. military deaths in Iraq in May and June.

The growing Taliban-led insurgency is primarily concentrated in the south and east, but significant fighting is occurring in the west and central parts of the country.

In central Wardak province, U.S.-led coalition forces killed "several militants" while hunting for a Taliban leader said to have been behind an attack that killed three American troops and their interpreter last month.

Coalition forces were searching compounds in Saydabad district in Wardak on Tuesday when militants attacked with grenades, machine guns and small-arms.

The troops fired back and called in an airstrike. The coalition statement did not say whether the Taliban commander was among the dead.

Militants had attacked a coalition convoy on June 26 in Saydabad, killing the Afghan interpreter and three troops.

Separately, a civilian vehicle struck a mine in Khost province in Afghanistan's east Tuesday, killing four people and wounding three, provincial police official Yaqub Khan said. The dead included a 2-year-old and a woman.

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