KABUL: Five U.S. soldiers were killed by a bomb in southern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the U.S. Armed Forces said on Saturday.

The Taliban launched their annual spring offensive on Sunday, saying it would take aim at foreign military bases and diplomatic areas.

Three British troops were killed by a roadside bomb earlier this week in the southern province of Helmand.

Provincial government spokesman Din Mohammad Darwesh said the 2-day operation that ended Tuesday night in Logar province also killed a local Taliban commander.

He says two civilians were wounded in Baraki Barak district. There were no immediate reports of Afghan or international forces deaths.

The NATO military coalition says in a statement that the troops killed 24 insurgents as part of the operation that rescued two captured Afghan soldiers. Afghan officials gave varying numbers of 23 to 26 militants killed.

Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, offered his “personal apology and condolences to the family of the boys who were killed” and said the coalition takes full responsibility for the deaths.

A statement issued by the coalition says the boys were killed Thursday when coalition forces fired at what they thought were insurgent forces in the Shahid-e Hasas district of Uruzgan province. It says a joint Afghan-NATO investigation team visited the location Saturday and met with local leaders.

The killing of civilians by foreign forces has been a major source of tension with the Afghan government throughout the nearly 12-year-old war.

According to a recent report by the United Nations, 2,754 Afghan civilians were killed last year, down 12 percent from 3,131 in 2011. But the number killed in the second half of last year rose, suggesting that Afghanistan is likely to face continued violence as the Taliban and other militants fight for control following the impending withdrawal of U.S. and allied combat forces.

The U.N. said the Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for 81 percent of the civilian deathsand injuries last year while 8 percent were attributed to pro-government forces. The remaining civilian deaths and injuries could not be attributed to either side.

The number of casualties blamed on U.S. and allied forces decreased by 46 percent, with 316 killed and 271 wounded last year. Most were killed in U.S. and NATO airstrikes, although that number, too, dropped by nearly half last year to 126, including 51 children.

KABUL, Afghanistan: NATO and Afghan forces have killed at least 25 insurgents and three of their commanders in separate operations around the country, Afghan and coalition officials said Wednesday.

The size and scope of the latest operations were an indication that the Afghan war is far from over after 11 years of conflict, even as U.S. and foreign forces begin rapidly withdrawing and handing the lead role for security to the Afghans.

Fighting is also expected to intensify as the traditional spring fighting season gets under way after the heavy snows that blanket much of northern and eastern Afghanistan starts melting.

The U.S.-led International Assistance Force has about 100,000 troops in the country, including about 66,000 from the United States. America is expected to pull out 34,000 of its troops within a year and its allies are also expected to scale back considerably. Afghan forces are to take the lead for security starting in the spring — months ahead of schedule.

An Afghan security operation on Tuesday in Mehterlam, the capital city of eastern Laghman province, killed 15 insurgents, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday. The ministry said the insurgent’s commander, identified as Qari Almas, was also killed in the raid.

Also Tuesday, joint operations by Afghan and coalition troops killed 10 insurgents in southern and eastern Afghanistan, NATO said.

The coalition said five insurgents were killed in the lawless Andar district of eastern Ghazni province, three died in an operation in eastern Logar province, and two were killed in southern Helmand province.

Both the Andar and Helmand killings were carried out by what NATO called “precision strikes,” usually a reference to an airstrike.

An Afghan official said a NATO airstrike killed a senior Taliban commander in southern Helmand province on Tuesday. Ismail Khoutak, the director of the Joint Operations Center in the region, identified the insurgent as Khan Mohammed, also known as Shamssullah. He said Mohammed commanded insurgents in the Mus-a-Qala district.

NATO confirmed in an announcement that the Taliban commander had been killed in the operation.

The attack occurred about 10 p.m. Tuesday during a joint NATO-Afghan operation in the Shigal district of Kunar province, a lawmaker from the area said. The U.S.-led military alliance in Kabul said only that it was looking into the reports.

Wagma Sapay, a member of parliament from Kunar, said the civilians killed were in one house while four senior Taliban leaders were slain as they were gathering next door in the Chawkam area.

Karzai’s office said 10 civilians, including women and children were killed, and four were wounded. It said a delegation was sent to the site to investigate.

The statement said Karzai “strongly condemns” the airstrike and “emphasizes that the fight against terrorism is not in the house and villages of Afghan people.”

Provincial police chief Ewaz Mohammad Naziri said those killed included five boys, four women and one man.

The governor of Kunar, Sayed Fazelullah Wahidi, said the local government had not been informed about plans for the strike.

“This operation was by coalition and Afghan forces,” he said. “We were not aware of it.”

The killing of civilians at the hands of U.S. and other foreign forces has been one of the most contentious issues in the 11-year war.

Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, said the alliance was aware of the allegations of civilian casualties in Kunar but could not confirm any details.

“We take these allegations very seriously and we are in the process of determining the circumstances surrounding this incident,” he said.

The reported attack came as President Barack Obama announced in his State of the Union speech that he will bring home within a year about half of the 66,000 U.S. troops now in Afghanistan in a step toward withdrawing all foreign combat forces by the end of 2014.

The U.N. body monitoring the rights of children said last week that attacks by U.S. military forces inAfghanistan, including airstrikes, have reportedly killed hundreds of children over the last four years.

The Geneva-based Committee on the Rights of the Child said the casualties were “due notably to reported lack of precautionary measures and indiscriminate use of force.”

ISAF, which is composed mainly of American forces, dismissed that claim, saying that it takes special care to avoid civilian casualties.