Suicide attack on NATO troops kills 3 Afghans

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Oct 16 (Reuters) A suicide car bomber attacked NATO troops in southern Afghanistan today killing three Afghan passers-by, while three people were wounded in a similar attack in Kabul, security officials said.

Nearly 200 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in suicide attacks in Afghanistan this year, part of a wave of the worst violence the country has seen since the Taliban were driven from power in 2001.

One NATO soldier and four Afghan civilians were wounded in the attack in the centre of the southern city of Kandahar, a NATO spokesman said.

NATO soldiers cordoned off the site of the attack, witnesses said, adding they saw a destroyed NATO vehicle and smoke rising.

The Kabul blast went off close to a school on a main road linking the U S embassy to the city's airport. Three Afghans were wounded.

A purported Taliban commander, Hayat Khan, speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, said both attacks were carried out by Taliban bombers.

Separately, troops from a U S-led coalition force killed three insurgents in an operation to destroy a bomb-making compound in Ghazni province to the southwest of Kabul, the force said. One coalition soldier was wounded.

NATO forces killed four Taliban in the eastern province of Kunar, yesterday NATO said, while Afghan troops killed eight Taliban in the southeastern province of Paktia, the Defence Ministry said.

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