KABUL (AFP) - - Around 26 Taliban have been killed in military action in Afghanistan, officials said Monday, including a dozen when troops repelled a mass attack on several US and Afghan bases.

Australia meanwhile announced earlier it had lost a soldier in a Taliban attack in the southern province of Uruzgan on Sunday. The country is one of about 40 with troops in Afghanistan to fight back the extremist Taliban.

Between 30 and 40 insurgents attacked five bases in the eastern province of Kunar on Sunday with artillery, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, the US-led coalition said in a statement.

The military forces responded, including with military aircraft, and a dozen insurgents were killed and a dozen more wounded, it said.

Another six rebels were killed Monday when security forces fought back a Taliban attack on a coalition and Afghan army convoy in the central province of Ghazni, provincial government spokesman Zia Wali Zadran told AFP.

Six more were killed and 18 wounded in a military operation in a different area of the same province late Sunday, Zadran said.

The coalition also announced that two insurgents were killed in the eastern province of Nangarhar on Sunday when international and Afghan troops fought back after being attacked during an operation.

A member of the Afghan security forces was also killed, it said in a statement. Four suspected insurgents were arrested. The operation was to track down a man involved in suicide attacks.

Militants had also attacked a high-profile military parade in Kabul Sunday, missing President Hamid Karzai but killing a tribal chief and a parliamentarian. A 10-year-old boy was also killed.

Authorities said Monday that investigations were continuing into the daring attack and people rounded up afterwards were being questioned.