Suicide bomber attacks convoy in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide car bomber attacked a convoy near the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday, injuring two foreigners and four Afghans, officials said. Eight police officers died in a separate ambush by suspected Taliban insurgents.

The attacker rammed his vehicle into a convoy of two four-wheel drive Landcruisers on a main road leading out of Kabul, said Ali Shah Paktaiwal, chief of criminal investigations in the city. At least one of the vehicles was badly damaged, witnesses said.

"I saw two bleeding foreigners being carried into cars and taken to hospital," an unidentified witness told a local TV station.

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemerai Bashary said two foreigners and four Afghans were injured. He said he did not know the extent of their injuries or the nationality of the foreigners.

British and U.S. forces prevented reporters from getting near the scene of the attack.

Insurgent violence in Afghanistan is running at its highest level since U.S. forces invaded the country in 2001 to oust the hard-line Islamic Taliban rulers, who had harbored al-Qaida leaders following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Most of the violence is concentrated in southern or eastern Afghanistan, where insurgents staged several attacks Saturday. But there have been occasional suicide attacks on Afghan security forces or western targets in Kabul.

In southern Kandahar province, insurgents detonated a bomb as a police patrol passed before attacking with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, said police officer Umar Khan. Eight officers were killed and one was missing, he said.

Also in Kandahar, a roadside bomb killed two Afghans guarding a convoy carrying supplies for NATO-led forces, according to provincial police chief Sayed Aqa Saqib. In neighboring Helmand, Afghan soldiers shot and killed two suspected Taliban fighters as they attempted to plant a roadside bomb, said police officer Ghulam Wali.

In eastern Ghazni district, police killed 24 militants, two of whom where believed to be Arabs, over the last 24 hours, local police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai said. Five insurgents were also killed in western Badghis district since Friday, a police official there said.

On Friday, insurgents attacked a police patrol in eastern Paktika, sparking a gunbattle that killed six militants and one officer, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.