An Afghan soldier was also wounded in Saturday's incident, ISAF said in a statement that gave no other details.

The 37-nation force does not release the nationalities of its casualties, leaving this to the home nations concerned.

Most of the international troops in southern Afghanistan -- which sees the worst of the Taliban's Al-Qaeda-backed insurgency -- are British, Canadian, Dutch or US soldiers.

The latest death brings the number of international troops killed this year to 131, according to an AFP count, most of them in action as the Taliban insurgency has intensified. Three have been killed this month.

More than 190 were killed last year.

About 50,000 international troops, more than half of them Americans, are deployed in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and help the government establish its authority, which in the south is mostly limited to main centres.

earlier related report
Five Canadian soldiers were wounded Sunday in southern Afghanistan when their convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device and a rocket, local media reported.

None of the soldiers were seriously wounded, an army spokesman told CBC television.

"Their condition is good and so it's less serious that we thought at the beginning," he said.

The soldiers were heading to their base in Kandahar when their vehicle was hit first by a roadside bomb, then by a rocket.

Four of the five wounded are from French-speaking Quebec, which has sent a major deployment of troops to take over for English-speaking Canadian soldiers. Sixty-six Canadian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002.