The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Kandahar

A suicide car bomber targeting an international military convoy in Afghanistan Thursday killed eight civilians and injured two dozen people, including three foreign troops, officials said.

Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the attack in the southern city and former rebel stronghold of Kandahar, on the road to the city's airport which is home to thousands of Western soldiers. "Eight people have been killed and 24 others including two policemen were injured. It was a suicide bombing," provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqeb told AFP at the site of the blast.

He said the explosion occurred as a foreign convoy passed through the area.

A spokesman with NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said three foreign soldiers were injured in the blast but declined to give their nationalities. The separate US-led coalition said it was gathering reports, but a spokesman said "we don't deny" the wounded are coalition forces. A Canadian military spokesman rejected an interior ministry report that they were from Canada.