Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan fatally shot a male passenger in a taxi that came too close to their patrol, military officials say.

Major Scott Lundy, speaking on behalf of the multi-national forces in Afghanistan, said the incident happened late Tuesday after the driver of the taxi ran an Afghan police checkpoint just outside Kandahar, where most of Canada's 2,220 troops in Afghanistan are based.

"As I understand it, the taxi cab failed to stop when it was asked to do so by an Afghan national police checkpoint," Lundy told CTV Newsnet from Kandahar on Wednesday.

"That led to several shots being fired directly at the vehicle in an effort to disable it."

"... Despite repeated warnings by our crew in our vehicles, (the cab) approached to within two feet of one of our vehicles," said Lt.-Col Derek Basinger of Task Force Afghanistan.

"It is a sad thing when people die in such a fashion, however, the patrol did what it had to do to protect itself," Lundy added.

The victim is estimated to be in his early 40s.

Canadian troops have been forced to fire warning shots near approaching vehicles 10 times in the last several months.

"As you can imagine, with respect to the number of suicide bombings we've had, the number of attacks on our vehicles in the past month that we've been here, our rules do not allow vehicles to travel that close to our vehicles," said Basinger.

The local population has been repeatedly warned through signs and radio ads to keep clear of military trucks and armoured vehicles, the officials say.

Suicide bombers have targeted Canadian military vehicles in Afghanistan several times. The most recent incident on March 3 injured one soldier.

A Canadian diplomat was killed and three soldiers were wounded on Jan. 15 in another attack.

The independent Canadian Forces National Investigation Service and the Afghan police are looking into Tuesday's incident. The soldier who fired the shots has been temporarily relieved of duty.

The dead man's relatives are incensed the Canadian troops left him after the shooting.

"The Canadians even insulted the dead body. They didn't take him to the hospital or the base. They just threw him on the side of the road," said one.

A Canadian Forces medic treated the wounded man at the scene, but said he didn't consider the victim's injuries to be life-threatening at the time.

Winning hearts and minds is a major part of the mission, and Canadian commanders realize this incident is a setback. They ssay it will take time to mend fences.

"You deal with it a person at a time, you listen to what they have to say, offer support where you can, and work with them to find a solution. But in this case, there's no happy solution," Lundy said.

With a report from CTV's Ellen Pinchuk