Afghan intelligence official, ISAF soldier killed

KABUL, March 9 (Reuters) - Unknown gunmen shot dead a district intelligence official in southeastern Afghanistan while a roadside bomb blast killed a foreign soldier in a neighbouring province, officials said on Sunday.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan in the last two years with some 6,000 people killed in 2007, the deadliest year since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001.

The shooting took place on Saturday in the province of Khost.

"The incident took place in the Mandozai district when the district intelligence chief Habib Khan was leaving home for the office," said district chief Dawlat Khan. "The incident is under investigation and no one has been arrested yet."

Also on Saturday, a roadside bomb killed a soldier from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, (ISAF) and wounded another in the neighbouring province of Paktia, an ISAF statement said.

ISAF did not release the nationality of the dead soldier however, but most troops operating in eastern Afghanistan are American. (Reporting by Hamid Shalizi, editing by Sanjeev Miglani)