Agencies

Kabul, May 30:

A bicycle bomb targeting a NATO-led vehicle exploded today near Kabul, wounding at least seven Afghans, hours after a rocket was fired at the peacekeeping force’s headquarters in the capital, officials said. The twin attacks, which caused no casualties among members of the 8,300-strong International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, highlighted the deteriorating security situation in Kabul. The remote-controlled bomb was set on a bicycle left on the side of the main road from Kabul to the eastern city of Jalalabad, district police chief Mohammed Akbar told AFP. “Seven people were injured, some of them seriously: four were in a taxi passing by, three were pedestrians,” Akbar said. “The taxi driver was seriously injured and was taken to hospital.” At the scene, where ISAF patrols pass almost every hour, pieces of metal, the remains of the blown up bicycle and the partially destroyed taxi could be seen. “The target was obviously the ISAF patrols or aimed at creating an atmosphere of violence in the city,” Akbar added. Interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal confirmed the blast in the Hod Qhail neigborhood east of Kabul targeted an ISAF vehicle. “It was aimed at an ISAF vehicle, but missed it and struck a taxi and pedestrians passing by.” The force’s spokesman Lieutenant Karen Tissot van Patot told AFP no peacekeepers were injured in the blast. She said it happened nine km east of the capital, but gave no other details.

Around eight hours earlier a rocket shook the ISAF headquarters in central Kabul, although no one was injured in the incident. Meanwhile, a report from Kandahar said two Afghan soldiers were killed and another 11 were missing after suspected Taliban rebels ambushed an army patrol in the country’s south today, officials said. The attack occurred in Zabul province’s Arghandab district, said regional government chief Abdul Qayum.US forces rushed to the scene of the assault, but the rebels had already fled, the US military said. It confirmed that two Afghan soldiers were killed.