The deaths came as the world marked the September 11, 2001 attacks that led mostly US troops into Afghanistan to topple the Taliban movement for harbouring Al-Qaeda.

A soldier with NATO's International Security Assistance Force was killed in eastern Afghanistan, ISAF in a statement that did not give the trooper's nationality. Most international soldiers in the east are US nationals.

The soldiers died in an attack on a "combat post", an ISAF media officer said. Fewer than 10 militants had attacked the position with guns and rocket-propelled grenades before being repelled by troops, he said.

The separate US-led coalition, which is mainly US soldiers, announced separately that another trooper was killed "while conducting combat operations", also in the east of the country.

It did not release a nationality.

The British Ministry of Defence said meanwhile that one of its soldiers had died Wednesday in an explosion in the southern province of Helmand.

The ministry said it was investigating the cause of the fatal blast in restive Helmand where most of the 7,800 British troops in Afghanistan are based.

"The soldier was on routine patrol duties near Musa Qala when he was killed in a contact explosion," it said.

The Taliban held the small town of Musa Qala, also a drugs-producing hub, for several months before they were ejected in a military operation in December.

More than 200 international soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan this year -- most of them in rebel attacks, particularly bomb blasts.

There are nearly 70,000 international soldiers from around 40 mainly Western countries in Afghanistan to help the destitute country defeat an extremist insurgency and rebuild its own security forces.

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