KANDAHAR (AFP) - A Canadian soldier was among two dozen people killed in new Taliban-linked violence in Afghanistan, authorities said Saturday. The soldier, the 88th fatality from Canada's military mission in Afghanistan since 2002, was killed when a bomb blew up a foot patrol in the southern province of Kandahar shortly before midnight Friday, the Canadian army said. Canada is one of the major contributors to an international coalition helping the Afghan government tackle an insurgency launched after the Taliban were driven from government in late 2001 by a US-led coalition. Four Afghan police officers were killed in another bombing in the same area on Saturday, police said. The Taliban said they had carried out the attack in Kandahar's Maiwand district. "A police vehicle which was on a routine patrol struck a roadside bomb. Four policemen were killed and another one was injured," police official Khan Mohammad told AFP. Also in Kandahar Saturday, a suicide bomber blew up near a police post on a road leading to the biggest NATO-led base in the southern city, injuring a policeman and a child, a police officer at the scene said. In the neighbouring province of Zabul meanwhile nine Taliban militants were killed in a gunfight with security forces, deputy police chief Ghulam Jailani Khan said. The fighting erupted after gunmen attacked a supply convoy heading to NATO bases in the region, he said. "We sent police forces to help the guards. In fighting which lasted two hours, we killed nine Taliban," he told AFP. Separately, four police officers were killed when militants stormed their outpost in the eastern province of Paktia on Friday, the interior ministry said. Two other officers were missing, it said in a statement. Another police officer was killed Friday when a roadside bomb hit the convoy of the police chief of central Ghazni province. The police chief survived the bombing, the ministry said. It also reported that seven Afghan security guards working with NATO-led forces were killed in two separate bomb explosions Friday in the southern province of Helmand " a hotbed of Taliban insurgents. This year 135 international soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan, most of them in rebel attacks, according to an AFP tally.