Kabul: A suicide car bomber struck a US military convoy passing through a crowded market in eastern Afghanistan today, killing at least 20 civilians and a US soldier and wounding an additional 74 civilians, officials said.
Separately, an explosion in southern Afghanistan killed two NATO troops, the military alliance said in a statement. It did not disclose the troops nationalities.
The suicide attack in the east, happened in Bati Kot district of Nangarhar province, said Lt Cmdr Walter Matthews, a US military spokesman.
At least 20 civilians were killed in the blast, which also killed a US soldier, Matthews said. Seventy-four civilians were wounded, said Ajmal Pardes, a provincial health official.
The bomber struck the convoy near a crowded market, where people were trading sheep, cows, goats and other animals, said Ghafoor Khan, the spokesman for the provincial police chief.
An Associated Press photographer said that an American military vehicle, two civilian vehicles and two rickshaws were destroyed.
The wounded civilians were transported to at least three hospitals in the provincial capital of Jalalabad, Khan said. The death toll was likely to rise, he said.
Taliban militants regularly use suicide attackers and car bombs in their assaults against US, Afghan and other foreign troops in the country. But a majority of the victims in such attacks have been civilians.
