A suicide bomber on Monday killed an Afghan civilian and wounded two guards at a US base in Afghanistan where seven CIA agents were killed last year by an Al-Qaeda double agent.
The Afghan Taliban claimed the attack, which came on the same day that Pakistan's Taliban leader, who claimed involvement in last year's attack, appeared in two purported new videos threatening US and NATO targets.
Police said the bomber detonated a car full of explosives outside Forward Operating Base Chapman in the eastern province of Khost, a day after a roadside bomb left eight civilians dead in neighbouring Paktia.
The Khost bomber struck four months after seven CIA agents were killed in a suicide attack on the base, located near the border with Pakistan's tribal belt -- a known refuge of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
"One civilian was killed and two Afghans working with US forces were injured," Khost police chief Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai told AFP.
The bomber detonated the explosives near a water-tanker that was entering the facility, local government spokesman Mubariz Zadran said.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force, which runs the base, declined to comment except to say that two wounded Afghans had been taken to a military hospital for treatment.
Khost has suffered a deterioration in security in recent years despite a substantial US-funded reconstruction programme, part of a counter-insurgency strategy based on winning over the public and drying up support for the rebels.
On December 30, a Jordanian double agent who had been brought to Chapman after promising to share intelligence on Al-Qaeda blew himself up, killing seven CIA agents in the deadliest blow against the agency since 1983.
Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, who claimed involvement in that attack, threatened to attack US cities in videos released Monday -- months after his reported killing in a US missile strike in January.
The latest attack in Khost came hours after eight civilians, two of them children, were killed by a roadside bomb in Paktia province late Sunday.
Another 14 people were wounded when the bomb blast hit a minivan, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Dastagir Rustamyar told AFP. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Roadside bombs, often made from a mixture of fertiliser, fuel and metal, have become the weapon of choice for Taliban-led militants and cause increasing numbers of casualties among civilians as well as foreign and Afghan forces.
On Sunday, the government said 173 civilians had died during the first month of the Afghan year -- or between March 21 and April 21 -- an increase of around 33 percent on the same period last year.
Civilian casualties have undermined efforts to win Afghan hearts and minds as part of a sweeping new counter-insurgency strategy coordinated by General Stanley McChrystal, who heads NATO and US troops in Afghanistan.
The estimated 126,000 foreign troops fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan are set to peak at 150,000 by August as the US-led military tries to fast-track efforts to end a conflict that is now in its ninth year.
Most of the extra troops are heading south, the heartland of the Taliban-led insurgency and the focus of the US-led fight to flush the militants from Kandahar and Helmand provinces.
In the north, eight Norwegian soldiers serving with ISAF were injured, two of them seriously, in an attack on Sunday.
The Norwegian military said the troops had been heading to meet Afghan security forces in Ghormach district when they came under attack and a six-hour firefight ensued.
Copyright 2010  AFP South Asian Edition
