KABUL: A powerful suicide car bomb targeted a foreign military convoy in Kabul on Thursday, causing casualties in the first major attack in the Afghan capital for more than two months, police said.
Officers were unable to give exact numbers or confirm any deaths but said most of the victims were Afghan civilians caught by the explosion in the Shah Shaheed residential district in the southeast of Kabul.
An AFP photographer said surrounding streets had been cordoned off and a mangled vehicle was visible as US troops arrived at the scene. Schoolgirls fled the area in tears, he said.
"At around 8:00 am (0330 GMT) this morning, terrorists detonated an explosives-packed (Toyota) Corolla car near a convoy of foreign forces," Hashmat Stanikzai, the Kabul police spokesman, told AFP.
"It caused casualties and most of the casualties are Afghan civilians. There are people wounded, but at this stage we don't have a figure as they were rushed to different hospitals.
"We don't have information if the foreigners suffered any casualties."
Lieutenant Quenton Roehricht, a spokesman for NATO's US-led International Security Assistance Force, told AFP that the mission was aware of the explosion, but was unable to confirm further details.
An ambulance official who declined to be named said that 10 Afghans had been evacuated from the area to be treated for injuries, without giving any further details.
Police added that at least 10 houses had been severely damaged by the blast.
It was the first major attack in Kabul since March 9 when a suicide bomber on a bicycle killed nine people outside the defence ministry during a visit by US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
It comes just weeks after the Taliban launched their annual "spring offensive" on April 27, opening a crucial period for Afghanistan as local security forces take the lead in offensives against the insurgents.
The Islamist militants said that multiple suicide bombings, "insider attacks" by Afghan soldiers and "special military tactics" would target international airbases and diplomatic buildings to inflict maximum casualties.
All NATO combat missions will finish by the end of next year and the 100,000 foreign troops deployed across Afghanistan have already begun to withdraw from the battlefield.
More than 11 years after the Taliban regime was ousted in 2001, efforts to seek a political settlement ending the violence have so far made little progress, but pressure is growing ahead of the NATO withdrawal.
In the most recent NATO casualties, a roadside bomb killed four US soldiers in the volatile province of Kandahar on Tuesday.
Three Georgian soldiers were killed in neighbouring Helmand province on Monday when a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle laden with explosives. (AFP)
