Wednesday, February 8 2006 10:43 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kandahar: A suicide attacker killed 13 people outside police headquarters in southern Afghanistan today (Feb 7,2006) while a bomb in the west killed a Turkish engineer, an Indian and their driver, officials said.

A spokesman for the Taliban Government claimed responsibility for both attacks.

An explosion in the later part of the day in the Ankara-based Kolin construction company killed a Turkish engineer, an Indian and their driver on a highway in the western province of Farah, a company official claimed.

In another attack, a suicide blast in the insurgency-hit southern city of Kandahar, the eighth in the country this year, killed 13 people.

"A suicide bomber wanted to get into the headquarters and while police were searching for him he detonated the bomb which killed 13 people, among which seven are police and six civilians," interior ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai told agencies.

A doctor at the Kandahar public health hospital confirmed that 13 people were dead. Eleven were wounded, most of them critically, he said.

Purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP, "It was carried out by one of our mujahedin (holywarrior) brothers. It was a suicide attack aimed at the police headquarters."