Six US troops and three Afghan soldiers have been killed in an ambush in east Afghanistan, Nato officials have said.

 

Lieutenant-Colonel David Accetta said the troops were returning from a meeting with village elders on Friday afternoon in Nuristan province when they were attacked.

"They were attacked from several enemy positions at the same time," the spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) and the US military, said. "It was a complex ambush."

 

A Nato statement said eight Isaf troops and 11 Afghan soldiers were also wounded in the attack.

However, Dhabih Allah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, told Al Jazeera that 32 foreign troops were killed when Taliban fighters ambushed them in Nuristan's Aran district.

 

A multinational force base is located in Aran district, where fighting frequently takes place between Taliban fighters and Nato forces.

 

The Taliban spokesman denied any casualties on his side from the fighting.

 

Mohammad Daoud Nadim, Nuristan's deputy police chief, said the ambush occured in the remote province's Waygal district.

 

He said military aircraft fired on enemy positions but had no information on any casualties among the fighters.

The deaths made 2007 the worst year for US military deaths since the invasions of 2001, mirroring the US toll in Iraq.

 

So far 101 US soldiers have been killed so far, overtaking the 93 deaths in 2005, and the 87 killed in 2006.