Suicide Car Bomber Kills 6 in Eastern Afghanistan

Afghan officials say a suicide bomber in a car blew himself up at a police checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan killing six people, including one policeman.

Nangarhar's governor, Gul Agha Sherzai, said at least four other people were wounded in Saturday's attack

Separately, NATO says one of its soldiers has been killed during a "hostile incident" in southern Afghanistan.

The military alliance says the soldier died Friday, but did not give details of the incident or the soldier's nationality.

The killing came on the same day that a top NATO commander in Afghanistan said the arrival of more U.S. troops in the coming months will trigger an increase in violence.

Dutch Major General Mart de Kruif told reporters on Friday that he expects an initial increase in insurgent attacks in the country's south, but that security will improve by 2010.

U.S. President Barack Obama last month approved the deployment of an additional 17,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

Kruif commands NATO troops in the south, where violence has increased significantly due to a growing Taliban insurgency.

He says NATO forces are aggressively enhancing their abilities to locate makeshift bombs -known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs - used by militants. Kruif says troops are also focused on disrupting insurgent bomb-making networks.

Meanwhile, the Canadian military said two separate bomb blasts killed four of its soldiers and an Afghan interpreter Friday in the southern province of Kandahar.

Canada has lost 116 troops and an aid worker since deploying troops in Afghanistan in 2002. Some 2,800 Canadian troops are deployed in southern Afghanistan.

In other violence, Taliban militants clashed with police in western Farah province on Friday. Police say at least eight officers and six militants were killed. Elsewhere in Farah, police say a suicide bomber killed a police officer.