KABUL (Reuters) - Two Italian peacekeepers were killed and four wounded in a roadside blast near the Afghan capital Kabul on Friday, a spokesman for Afghanistan's NATO-led peacekeeping force said.

Taliban insurgents have intensified their campaign against foreign troops and the government in recent months with a wave of roadside and suicide bombings, attacks and assassinations.

"The four wounded have been successfully evacuated," said the spokesman, Major Luke Knittig.

"We have a lot of assets along with Kabul police at the scene."

Violence in parts of Afghanistan is the worst it has been since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001. Including the two Italians killed on Friday, 20 foreign soldiers have died in Afghan violence this year.

Italy has some 1,775 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Italy handed over command of the force to Britain on Thursday.

Italy is still recovering from last week's killing of three soldiers in Iraq. They were killed by a roadside bomb which struck their convoy southwest of Nassiriya.

NATO's Afghan force operates in relatively peaceful Kabul, and in the north and west of the country but it is due to expand into the volatile south in July.

Commanders say the insurgents are trying to inflict casualties on foreign forces, as thousands of reinforcements arrive, to sap support for the depolyments at home.

Violence has been particularly severe in the south, where at least four people were killed on Saturday, including two relatives of a member of parliament.

Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, a member of the upper house of parliament, said an uncle, who was a tribal elder, and a cousin were killed in the blast in Kajakai district of Helmand province.

"They were going from their home to the market and on the way a remote-control bomb blew up," said Akhundzada, a former governor of the southern province where British forces are being deployed to improve security.

Two policemen were killed and two wounded in a Taliban raid in the Nauzad district of Helmand province, a government official said. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Helmand is one of Afghanistan's most violent provinces where Taliban and drug gangs are increasingly cooperating, officials say. Britain will soon have more than 2,000 troops there.

A Taliban spokesman, Mohammad Hanif, said by telephone from an undisclosed location that Taliban suicide bombers would increase attacks on British troops in Helmand, and would "turn the ground red" with their blood.

Britain is sending about 3,300 troops to Helmand and neighbouring Kandahar province, where Canada already has about 2,200. The Netherlands is sending up to 1,600 to the south, with smaller contingents from several countries including Australia.

The deployments will let the United States cut its Afghan force by several thousand, to about 16,500.

In the eastern province of Ghazni, where residents say small groups of Taliban are roaming the countryside, a local-level Taliban commander, Mullah Ruhullah Shuhab, was killed in a clash on Wednesday, police said.