Two suicide blasts wound 16 in Afghanistan

KHOST, Afghanistan, Oct 12 (Reuters) Two suicide bombers, one targetting a US-led coalition convoy and another Afghan soldiers, blew themselves up in the southeastern province of Khost today, wounding 16 people.

This year is the bloodiest in Afghanistan since coalition forces overthrew the Islamist Taliban government in 2001.

A coalition spokesman said no-one in the convoy was hurt.

But 14 civilians and two Afghan soldiers were wounded in the attacks, officials and witnesses said.

Ariana private television station cited its reporter in Khost saying 16 people were wounded, but did not give details.

One attacker hurled himself on a car carrying Afghan troops a few hundred metres from the provincial governor's office in Khost city and the second used a car against the US-led troops on a road south of the city.

Taliban rebels have made scores of suicide bombings against foreign and Afghan forces in Kabul and across the country.

About 200 people, most of them civilians, have died in the attacks, rare until this year, according to NATO figures.

But suicide bombings are still not as common as in Iraq.

More than 2,500 people, most of them militants but including more than 140 foreign soldiers, have died in the Taliban-led insurgency and operations by foreign forces this year.

REUTERS DKB KN1135