A suicide bomber blew up an explosives-filled car near international troops in eastern Afghanistan Saturday, killing two Afghan boys and wounding a NATO soldier, officials said. The bombing just outside the city of Khost was the second suicide attack in Afghanistan since Thursday, when a blast in Kabul killed six civilians and wounded four soldiers deployed as part of a US-led coalition. Taliban militants claimed responsibility for both attacks.A NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman who asked not to be identified confirmed one soldier had been hurt in the blast. The alliance force, made up of around 47,000 soldiers from nearly 40 countries, does not release the nationalities of its casualties. However most foreign soldiers in eastern Afghanistan are US nationals.
Khost deputy police chief Mohammad Yaqoub said two children -- both 13 years old -- were killed and at least two civilian men injured in the attack.
Taxi driver Mohammad Ai'waz told AFP from the site soon after the bombing: "I can see a car on fire and another car flipped on its side next to the road. Lots of foreign troops are in the area and have sealed off the bombing site."
Khost, which is located on the border with Pakistan, has seen a spike in Taliban-linked insurgent attacks in recent weeks. Two NATO soldiers and two Afghan workers were killed in a suicide attack which targeted a joint Afghan-NATO outpost in the province's Yaqoubi district on March 4. A policeman was killed in a similar attack a day later elsewhere in the province.
In the southern province of Zabul, Afghan forces on Friday discovered a dozen explosive vests intended for suicide attacks, two car-bombs and dozens of home-made bombs with remote-control devices, an official said. One such bomb tore through a vehicle carrying road construction workers in Kandahar on Friday, killing three labourers, provincial official Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi told AFP.
Last year was the deadliest since the Taliban were toppled from power, with more than 8,000 people killed, according to a report delivered to the UN Security Council this month. About 1,500 were civilians, it said. There were about 160 suicide attacks last year, up from 123 the previous year.