Suicide bomber strikes near Kabul airport, two dead

A suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives near an entrance to the Afghan capital's airport on Friday, killing two Afghan soldiers and wounding a dozen people, allied forces and witnesses said.
The blast occurred at the Nato controlled side of the combined civil and military airport, they said. An Afghan airport official said civilian flights to and from the airport continued as normal. Hours after the suicide attack, a mortar raid aimed at a US base in the eastern province of Kunar killed at least 10 Afghan civilians, including women and children, a provincial official said.
Taliban guerrillas who are fighting Western troops and the Afghan government claimed responsibility for the Kabul suicide attack, the latest in a spree over the past 19 months - the bloodiest period since the Taliban were driven from power in 2001. "The bomber was in a car and tried to get into the airport through an entrance under the control of ISAF," said senior police official Ali Shah Paktiawal, referring to Nato's International Security Assistance Force.
The bomber crashed his car into an armoured Nato vehicle, and the explosives detonated a while later, said an Afghan soldier who witnessed the attack.
ISAF said two Afghan soldiers were killed and five alliance soldiers in the vehicle were wounded in the blast. Four Afghan troops and at least two civilians were also wounded.
The last suicide attack in Kabul occurred a fortnight ago and was aimed at a Nato convoy. Three alliance soldiers were wounded in that attack. Copying Iraqi insurgents' tactics, the Taliban largely rely on suicide attacks and roadside bombs as part of their campaign against the Afghan government and foreign troops.
US-led coalition forces have clashed with Taliban fighters almost daily in the south, where the insurgents are most active, and say they have killed hundreds in recent months. On Friday, six Taliban guerrillas were killed in an operation involving US soldiers in Ghazni province, a provincial official there said.
Later in the day, six mortar rounds hit a residential area close to a US base in Chawki district in Kunar province, which lies close to the border with Pakistan, district chief Mohammad Zahir said. "So far we have seen 10 dead bodies. There are perhaps more. Our search is continuing," Zahir said by telephone.
A US military spokesman confirmed the mortar bomb attack, but said none of the rounds fell inside the base. He had no information about any civilian casualties. The Taliban could not be reached for comment.