KABUL, March 30: A suspected suicide bomb rocked a city in eastern Afghanistan just before US First Lady Laura Bush visited the country, while a Taliban ambush left four policemen dead, officials said on Wednesday

The blast ripped through a Toyota taxi parked outside the governor’s office in Jalalabad early Wednesday, leaving a man who was in the vehicle “in pieces”, said Abdul Rehman, the police chief of Nangarhar province.

The Taliban attack on the border police happened on Tuesday in the western province of Farah, which is normally relatively free of violence by the ousted militia. The Taliban themselves have lost at least four fighters in a series of attacks over the last three days.

Laura Bush arrived on a lightning visit to Kabul around four hours after the explosion in Jalalabad. She stayed in the capital and did not go to the eastern city or to Farah. “We can say that the person was a suicide bomber because he was in the car with explosives,” police chief Mr Rehman said after the blast in Jalalabad.—AFP