Blast kills U.S. coalition soldier in Afghanistan

KABUL (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed a soldier from the U.S.-led coalition and wounded two more in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

More than 200 foreign troops were killed in Afghanistan in 2007 and while heavy snow has blanketed most of the country so far this year causing a lull in fighting, 12 foreign soldiers have still died since January 1.

The latest incident happened as Afghan and U.S.-led forces were patrolling the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province when their vehicle hit a mine, the statement said.

Other soldiers in the patrol discovered and made safe two more roadside bombs in the area, the statement added.

Meanwhile, coalition forces identified and killed seven suspected militants in an air strike as they were planting roadside bombs in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province on Tuesday, the Afghan Defence Ministry said on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, Afghan police rescued two Bangladeshi nationals kidnapped by the Taliban in the southwestern province of Farah, the provincial governor Mahaiddin Baloch said.

The pair were seized from a passenger bus on Tuesday on the main highway that loops through southern Afghanistan from the capital, through Kandahar in the south to Herat in the east.

Last year was the bloodiest in Afghanistan since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001 following the September 11 attacks on the United States.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Alex Richardson)