A suicide car bomb attack aimed at a convoy of Nato troops in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar killed 20 Afghan civilians today.
There was no immediate word if there were any casualties among the Nato troops, provincial police chief Sayed Aziz said.
"It was a suicide car attack, aimed at Nato, but killed instead 20 civilians and wounded 13 others," he said. No further details were immediately available.
Earlier today, a roadside bomb killed a Nato soldier in the south of Afghanistan. Another soldier was wounded when the bomb hit a Nato vehicle in Kandahar province, a stronghold for Taliban insurgents.
Four Nato soldiers, including three Britons, have been killed since Monday when Nato took over security from US forces in the south, the main bastion for the Islamist Taliban, which US-led forces drove from power in 2001.
Six other Nato soldiers have been killed in recent months as the alliance stepped up its deployment.
Another roadside bomb today, possibly aimed at a Nato convoy, wounded three civilians in the northern province of Baghlan, provincial officials said.
Nato's expansion into the south is aimed at allowing the United States to cut the size of its forces in the country and is the biggest ground operation by the alliance in its history.
Separately, 22 Taliban guerrillas were either killed or wounded in an operation by Afghan police yesterday in southern Helmand province, the interior ministry said.
The Taliban, stepping up operations in recent months, have vowed to topple President Hamid Karzai's US-backed government and drive out foreign forces.
Afghanistan is going through its bloodiest phase since the Taliban's overthrow, with most of the violence in the south and east, where more than 1,700 people including militants, civilians, aid workers, security forces and over 70 foreign troops have been killed this year.