The two soldiers were killed and one was presumed dead in an ambush the day after NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) took command of the south from a US-led coalition, embarking on the most ambitious military mission in its history.

The move south puts NATO, already in the relatively calmer west and north, into one of the most dangerous parts of the country where hardened Taliban fighters have teamed with other fundamentalists and drug runners.

"We know the southern provinces are the most difficult ones we can operate in the country," ISAF spokesman Major Luke Knittig said last week, describing the move as the "toughest ground mission" for NATO.

British troops in Helmand, where the bulk of around 4,000 British soldiers in Afghanistan are based, admitted soon after deploying earlier this year that the Taliban threat they encountered was far greater than expected.

The admission came just months after then-British defence minister John Reid expressed the hope that the British deployment could be accomplished without a shot being fired.

Commanders called for extra manpower and more aircraft, with the government agreeing last month to despatch 900 more troops. There were also reported complaints about their lightly-armoured Land Rover vehicles.

ISAF commander Lieutenant General David Richards has said the violence in lawless Helmand is fuelled by illegal opium production. Afghanistan is the world's main producer of opium.

"The opium trade is being threatened by the NATO expansion into the south and they are going to fight very hard to keep what they have got...," the general said, adding this had little to do with ideological commitment to the Taliban.

Other southern provinces have also seen heavy fighting, with experts describing the Taliban insurgency as stronger than ever this year.

The roughly 2,300 Canadian soldiers in Kandahar province, the birthplace of the extremist movement, have in particular been hit by several suicide attacks, with a spate of three over two days last month killing two Canadian soldiers and wounding nearly 10 more.

The 8,000 or so NATO troops in the south also include about 1,400 Dutch troops based in Uruzgan, which also sees regular violence, as well as US soldiers and other smaller deployments.

The attack Tuesday that killed two British soldiers in Helmand "tells us what we already knew, which is the south is a difficult and challenging environment," NATO civilian spokesman Mark Laity told AFP.

"But it was challenging yesterday and it will be challenging tomorrow. The key thing is this does not change our determination to continue the mission."

Part of NATO's mission in the south is to put stronger emphasis on reconstruction to spur "the people's own desire to defend what they see developing in front of them," as Richards said last week.

This ambition would not be swayed by insurgent violence, Laity said.

"Development and security cannot be separated but we obviously know that the establishment of security is more challenging in some areas than others," he said.

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