Kabul - A suicide car bomber targeted a foreign military convoy Thursday in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, killing more than 20 civilians and one US soldier, officials said. The death toll in the blast - which came a day after a tanker truck bombing in southern Afghanistan killed six people - had risen throughout the day, and security officials in the province who requested anonymity said it had exceeded 20.
Zamarai Bashari, a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, said the bomber targeted US-led coalition forces in the Bati Kot district on the main road between the provincial capital, Jalalabad, and Torkham on the Pakistani border. He said the bombing also wounded 65 civilians.
The US military said in a statement that one of its soldiers was killed in the blast, which took place at a meat market.
Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the attack.
In southern Afghanistan, six civilians were killed and 43 people were injured Wednesday when a bomb-filled fuel tanker exploded close to a building where the brother of President Hamid Karzai was attending a meeting in Kandahar province.
Wali Karzai, head of the provincial governing council, was unhurt.
Two soldiers serving in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were also killed Wednesday in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, an ISAF statement said.
The statement did not release the nationalities of those killed or the location of the blast, but a statement released by the British Defence Ministry said two British soldiers had been killed in an explosion in the southern Helmand province on Wednesday.
