Nine US soldiers have been reportedly killed in clashes with Taliban militants in Afghanistan.
A NATO official said the clashes happened in Kunar province, near the border with Pakistan.
Elsewhere, the US military said an American soldier was killed in a roadside bomb attack in the southern province of Helmand.
In a separate incident, a suicide bomber has blown himself up in a crowded bazaar in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 24 people.
The blast in Uruzgan province came as heavy fighting was under way in northeastern Afghanistan, with casualties to NATO-led and Afghan soldiers and insurgents.
An attacker with bombs strapped to his body rammed his three-wheeled motorbike into a police vehicle in the Uruzgan bazaar, causing an explosion that ripped through several shops.
20 civilians and four policemen were killed in the blast that exploded in the middle of the crowded market.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but similar attacks have been carried out by Taliban militants, who have led an insurgency against the Kabul government since being ousted from power in 2001.
The Uruzgan blast came less than a week after a suicide bombing at the Indian embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul killed more than 40 people, including four Indian nationals, two of them senior diplomats.
The Kabul bombing was the deadliest suicide attack in the capital since the fall of the Taliban.
