KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A pair of militant attacks killed nine police officers in southern Afghanistan Sunday and the Netherlands announced that two of its soldiers had been killed in fighting in the south.

Taliban militants killed eight officers in an attack on a police checkpoint in Kandahar province, said Sadullah Khan, a police officer in neighboring Neven district. A suicide bomber killed another policeman and wounded eight other people when he blew himself up in a housing compound in the town of Lashkar Gah in neighboring Helmand province, officials said.

Guards challenged the bomber when he tried to enter the house of a regional police commander and the man detonated himself, killing the policemen and wounding two children, four civilians and two other police officers, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussain Andiwal said.

The Netherlands' Defense Ministry said two Dutch soldiers _ a 20-year-old private and a 22-year-old corporal _ were killed and in southern Afghanistan Saturday.

The Dutch soldiers died during a firefight with "opposing militant forces," in Uruzgan province, the Ministry said.

Another soldier wounded suffered wounds to both legs in a separate incident and was expected to survive, the ministry said.

The soldiers' families have been informed, but their names have not yet been released, the ministry said.

About 1,650 Dutch troops were deployed in Uruzgan as part of the NATO mission there. Fourteen Dutch troops have died since their mission began last year.

More than 925 Afghan policemen died in Taliban ambushes and bombings in 2007. The police appear to be more vulnerable to militant attacks because they work in smaller groups than the Afghan army troops and are not as well trained, officials say.

Militants have also launched more than 140 suicide attacks against Afghan government troops and officials as well as foreign forces over the past year. Most of the victims in such attacks have been civilians.