Kabul, Afghanistan: Taliban carried out a suicide car bomb attack on Tuesday targetting NATO troops in the Afghan capital, killing at least 20 people, including five foreigners, near Parliament in the deadliest strike on Kabul in more than a year.
The bomber unleashed scenes of horror during the busy rush hour in a heavily guarded area of Kabul near Parliament, a hospital run by foreigners, an army recruitment centre and the ministry of water and energy.
The attack was aimed at convoy of US troops, Italy's ambassador to Afghanistan told a television channel.
"The American convoy was attacked near Parliament. The death toll is still uncertain, two Americans may have been hit," the envoy Claudio Glaentzer said.
The Taliban, the militia leading a nearly nine-year insurgency against the Western-backed government and US-led foreign troops, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they had targeted "invading NATO forces."
The American University of Afghanistan is just across the road and the Kabul museum about 100 metres away.
The Afghan interior ministry said NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was the target, although the military was unable to say whether it had suffered any casualties.
"We have five bodies brought to our hospital so far...the number of the dead is more than 20, all civilians. The death toll is very high," Afghan army chief doctor General Ahmad Zia Yaftali told AFP.
Interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said at least 12 civilians had been killed and 47 others wounded, most had been travelling in a bus that passed when the suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives.
Children and women were among the dead and wounded, he said.
Ambulances were seen speeding off carrying the wounded through Kabul streets heavily clogged with traffic, an AFP reporter said.
Several SUV-style vehicles, of the type used by Western military troops and diplomats, were damaged at the bomb site, where Afghan and American security forces were investigating, an AFP photographer said.
Tuesday's bombing is the first major attack in Kabul since February 26 when Taliban suicide bombers targeted guesthouses, killing 16 people including Westerners and Indians in one the deadliest attacks on foreigners.
Yaftali's death toll of at least 20 would make it the deadliest attack in the capital since the Taliban launched suicide bomb and gun attacks on three Afghan government buildings on February 11, 2009, killing at least 26 people.
Zabihullah Mujahed, a Taliban spokesman called AFP from an undisclosed location to claim responsibility.
"The attack, which was a suicide car bomb, was carried out by one of our mujahedeen (holy warriors)," he said.
The Taliban had vowed to unleash a new nationwide campaign of attacks from May 10 that would target diplomats, members of the Afghan Parliament and foreign contractors as well as foreign forces in Afghanistan.
The militia is waging an increasingly deadly insurgency and attacks have increased over the past 12 months in the heavily guarded capital.
Last month, Afghan authorities announced the arrest of nine would-be suicide bombers who were allegedly plotting attacks on "strategic targets" in Kabul.
The men, aged between 16 and 55, were arrested during a coordinated operation that included raids on at least one madrassa, or religious school, in the capital, a spokesman for the country's spy agency said.
So far this year, at least 202 NATO soldiers have died according to an AFP tally, marking the deadliest January to mid-May period in the war, as the Taliban fight escalates and the West pours thousands more troops into battle.
From January to end-May 2009, 119 NATO soldiers died in Afghanistan. Overall, 520 NATO troops died in 2009, the deadliest year so far for US-led foreign troops since the 2001 US-led invasion brought down the Taliban regime.
Since summer 2009, one or two NATO soldiers have died on average each day. The United States and its NATO allies are increasing to 150,000 their military deployment in Afghanistan. About two-thirds of the troops are American.
The United States believes the troop "surge" can wrest the initiative from the Taliban in key population centres and allow American forces to start withdrawing from the unpopular and costly conflict next year.