US troops shot dead yesterday a man attempting to hurl a grenade at a convoy of US special forces in Afghanistan?s restive southern province of Kandahar, an Afghan official said.

In the third attack on US forces in southern Afghanistan in a week, a man armed with six grenades appeared on a bicycle as the convoy was leaving a US base in Kandahar city, said Mohammad Rasoul, a city security official. ?The attacker?s body is lying on the street,? Rasoul told reporters. ?It is beyond recognition. He had several bombs with him. We do not know for sure who he was.?

The US forces were unharmed, he said. The turbulent southern region, a bastion of Afghanistan?s former Taliban rulers before US-led forces routed the hardline Islamist regime in 2001, has experienced a wave of violence against US troops. Two US soldiers were shot dead and three injured last Thursday when suspected Taliban fighters fired on patrol vehicles in the southern province of Uruzgan.

More than 600 killed since last August

Five days ago a suspected Taliban suicide bomber threw a hand grenade at a vehicle carrying US soldiers in neighbouring Helmand province, wounding two of them, a spokesman for the provincial governor said.

More than 600 people, including militants, aid workers, Afghan and US-led troops, have been killed in Afghanistan since August last year ? mostly in the south and east. The attacks often target some 13,500 American-led forces who are hunting Taliban, al Qaeda fugitives and other militants. About 100 people were killed in clashes on Sunday in the western city of Herat between government troops and forces loyal to the provincial governor.

Earlier on Wednesday, a US military spokesman said four Afghan soldiers were killed and four US soldiers wounded when munitions being used in an Afghan army training exercise in the southeastern town of Gardez exploded accidentally.