Bomber kills engineers, driver in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Two engineers from India and their Afghan driver were killed Saturday morning by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan's southwest Nimroz province, according to the provincial governor.

The bomb attack, on a road being built by the engineers, also wounded five Indian nationals and an Afghan police escort, Nimroz Gov. Ghulam Dastagir Azad said.

It came on the day that the foreign ministers of France and Canada arrived in Afghanistan for a visit.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier will meet with President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan officials, the Afghan Foreign Ministry said.

France pledged additional troops last week for NATO's mission in Afghanistan.

Afghan troops and NATO forces killed 24 Taliban fighters in a battle that started Thursday night and lasted into Friday in southern Afghanistan, according to a provincial official.

The fighting was in Surkhakan village in Qalat, the capital city of Zabul province, according to Golab Shah Alikhail, Zabul's deputy governor.

He said no Afghan or NATO forces were killed in the operation.

Separately, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said one of its bases in Qalat was damaged by fire Friday. Authorities said the fire does not appear to be an "enemy action" and has not hurt operations at the base.

ISAF said in a Saturday news release that the blaze "damaged nearly half of [domestic] accommodations." No ISAF soldiers were injured. E-mail to a friend

Journalist Farhad Peikar in Kabul contributed to this report.

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