A Taliban suicide bomber has rammed an explosives-laden car into a NATO convoy close to the US embassy in Kabul, killing three soldiers and wounding at least 13 Afghan civilians.
At the side of the road, US and Polish troops gave first-aid to blood-stained comrades beside the wrecked remains of a military vehicle, but the nationality of the dead soldiers was not confirmed.
The massive blast occurred at about 8:00 am local time during heavy rush-hour traffic outside the Supreme Court and on a main road leading to the heavily-fortified US embassy.
"We can confirm three International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) members died as a result of an enemy attack in Kabul today," the NATO coalition said in a statement.
"It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities."
The blast shook nearby buildings as emergency vehicles raced through the streets to the scene on a main road that NATO convoys use every day.
"It was a suicide car bomber," said Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanakzai.
"Our initial reports show 13 civilians were wounded and 17 civilian cars were damaged.
"Some civilians were treated on the scene, and some were taken to the hospital."
The NATO force has now 41,000 troops in Afghanistan, with about 29,000 from the US and just 300 from Poland.
All NATO combat soldiers will withdraw by December after 13 years of fighting the Taliban, with a follow-on mission of about 12,000 troops likely to stay on into 2015 on training and support duties.
The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack via a recognised Twitter account.
"(A) powerful explosion destroyed 1 military vehicle, killing/wounding a number of American terrorists," said Taliban spokesman Abdulqahar Balkhi.
Afghanistan is stuck in a political stalemate over election results, with the two presidential candidates in talks to resolve the prolonged dispute over who won the June 14 vote to replace President Hamid Karzai.
Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah have been wrangling over a power-sharing deal after the vote was engulfed in allegations of fraud that have threatened to spark instability as NATO troops pull out.
Ghani, who is widely tipped to emerge as the new president, won the run-off election according to preliminary results, but Abdullah has consistently said he was the victim of state-backed ballot-rigging.
The stand-off has threatened to wreck hopes that the US-led military and civilian aid effort since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 would leave Afghanistan as a democratic country.
With the government paralysed for months, it has also emboldened the Taliban insurgents, weakened the fragile economy and put future international military and aid support at risk.
The United Nations has expressed fears that a disputed election result could revive the ethnic violence of the 1990s civil war, when nationwide chaos allowed the Taliban to come to power.
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