Two Afghan soldiers and a civilian woman have been killed in clashes with Taliban fighters in a village near the capital, Kabul, witnesses and police said.

Police said that five fighters were killed in the fighting on Wednesday, while a sixth escaped.

Three people were also arrested in the raid, police said.

The fighting broke out after Afghan forces surrounded a house in the area of Gozargah, 15km from Kabul's city centre.

Afghan security officials told Al Jazeera that the suspects were believed to be involved in an assassination attempt last Sunday on Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president.

Saeed Ansari, a spokesman for the intelligence service, said the troops wanted to capture the suspects alive.

However, Reuters news agency, citing interior ministry sources, reported that the five fighters had blown themselves up to avoid capture.

Security forces were still attempting to diffuse possible landmines and bombs planted by the fighters, Samir Allawi, Al Jazeera's Afghanistan bureau chief, reported from Kabul.

Taliban denial

The Taliban, speaking to Al Jazeera, confirmed only that four people - two men and two women - were killed after a 10-hour firefight with government forces.

It said that the four provided logistics and facilities for suicide bombings, but denied they had a role in the attack on Karzai last week.

Karzai escaped the attempt on his life at a military parade, but a member of parliament, the head of a minority group and a 10-year-old boy were killed, as well as three Taliban fighters.

PHOTO CAPTION 

A policeman inspects a damaged house in Kabul April 30, 2008.

Al-Jazeera