Taliban claim responsibility for the attack

KABUL: A suicide bomber attacked a military convoy on the eastern outskirts of Kabul on Friday, killing at least three foreign soldiers, police and the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. A spokesman for the group said in a message on his Twitter account: “A number of foreign forces were killed and wounded and many vehicles were also destroyed.”

Isaf put the death toll at three service members.

The Slovak foreign ministry said two of the dead were Slovak servicemen and one was a US soldier.

The blast left the twisted remains of the attacker’s car spread across the scene along with several other badly-damaged vehicles, including a Nato sports utility vehicle, witnesses said.

“Three International Security Assistance Force service members died following a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, today,” a statement from the Nato mission said.

The attack occurred on a main road that passes near a series of government compounds and Isaf military facilities in Kabul on way to Jalalabad.

“A car packed with explosives was detonated by a suicide bomber... (A)s a result six of our civilian countrymen were injured,” the interior ministry said in a statement.

A reporter said that ambulances, fire-fighters and armoured vehicles from the US-led Isaf mission in Afghanistan rushed to the blast site, which was quickly cordoned off by police.

“I was in my bakery shop when I heard a bang that shattered all the windows,” Nehmatullah, who uses only one name, said.

“I saw at least two bodies lying on the street and covered in blood, then came two vehicles of foreign forces and the soldiers pulled out two bodies of foreigners from a damaged black SUV.”

Isaf and Afghan security forces removed damaged vehicles using trucks and transporters.

Among the injured being treated in a nearby hospital was a middle-aged Afghan man with wounds to his head and hands.

Twelve coalition troops have died in Afghanistan so far this month including six US soldiers who died in a helicopter crash. So far this year 151 foreign troops have been killed in Afghanistan, according to a tally. —Agencies