A suicide bomber rammed a car into a convoy of Nato forces close to the airport in the Afghan capital today, wounding 10 Afghan civilians, a police official said.
A spokesman for the Taliban said the militant Islamic group carried out the attack to "welcome" US Defense Secretary Robert Gates who arrived in Kabul last night.
There were no casualties among Nato troops in the blast which happened during the morning rush hour on a road just outside Kabul's international airport, an alliance spokesman said. Nato put the number of Afghans wounded at 22.
The spokesman for Nato, which runs a force separate to the US military in Afghanistan, said that one of its vehicles was damaged in the blast.
Foreign and Afghan troops sealed off the site of the attack and smoke could be seen rising from the area. The blast reflected a rising level of violence in the past two years in Afghanistan, the bloodiest period since the Taliban's removal from power in 2001.
A poll conducted for three Western television networks showed that only 42 per cent of Afghans rated US efforts positively, down from 68 per cent in 2005 and 57 per cent last year.