A suicide car bomb exploded outside the German embassy and a US base in the Afghan capital, Kabul, today, killing three civilians, witnesses said.
A sewage tanker and several cars were burning at the scene and there were bloodstains on the road as police loaded the bodies onto the back of a pick-up truck and ferried several wounded to nearby hospitals, a witness said.
The blast was a result of a suicide attack, an Interior Ministry spokesman said, but he could not confirm the number of casualties.
The suicide bomber struck on a road lined with high concrete blast barriers that runs between the German embassy and Camp Eggers, the headquarters of a US unit that trains the Afghan army and police.
The presidential palace and United Nations headquarters in Afghanistan lie immediately behind Camp Eggers. Seven civilians were also wounded in the attack, the private Tolo TV said.
Two US military personnel at the base were slightly wounded and three more seriously from shattered windows and debris, but the perimeter walls were not penetrated, a spokesman said.
Spokesmen for the German embassy were not immediately available for comment.
Taliban militants, fighting to overthrow the Western-backed Afghan government and drive out foreign troops, have launched hundreds of suicide attacks in the last two years, but most of the victims are Afghan civilians.
While Taliban influence has spread from their traditional heartlands in the south and east to areas closer to the capital, there were fewer attacks inside Kabul last year than in 2007 with many more police checkpoints throughout the city.
US President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to make Afghanistan a foreign policy priority after he comes to office on Tuesday and is expected to approve the doubling of US troops in the country from the 30,000 at present.
Reuters