British national killed by Taliban suicide bomb targeting EU forces in Kabul

      Taliban claims responsibility for attack on EU police vehicle as explosion at Kabul airport kills at least three people, including a Briton, and wounds 18

       A British national was among three killed as a Taliban suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed car near the international airport in Afghanistan's capital on Sunday.

The attack appears to have targeted vehicles of the European Union police (EUPOL) training mission, 200 metres from Kabul airport on a road leading to a nearby Nato military installation.

The Briton, who has not been named, was travelling in the foreign mission vehicle rammed by the terrorists' Toyota Coroll, but was not a member of EUPOL.

EUPOL spokesman Sari Haukka-Konu said all the mission's personnel "are in a safe place" with non-fatal injuries, but another person travelling in the vehicle was killed.

"All mission members who were in the vehicle are in a safe place and their injuries are not believed to be fatal," she told The Associated Press. "A non-EUPOL person inside the vehicle is deceased."

A British embassy spokesman later confirmed that a British national was among the dead but could give no other details.

The other two confirmed victims were Afghan, believed to have been teenage girls described by Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi as "passers-by".

Afghan women pass the scene of the car bomb attack in Kabul   Photo: REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

Eighteen people were wounded, including eight women and three children. He said three foreigners had been wounded.

The car bomb was detonated near the office of the Afghan Civil Aviation Authority, which is a few hundred yards from the airport terminal, early on Sunday morning, said Najib Danish, the deputy spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

US forces and Afghan security inspect the site after the suicide bombing attack near Kabul's international airport  Photo: AP Photo/Rahmat Gul

Nearby homes and shops were damaged, and the road – choked with traffic throughout the day as vehicles pass through a slow-moving checkpoint into the airport – was strewn with the charred remains of a number of cars.

Danish said that one foreign vehicle and two civilian vehicles were damaged in the blast. EUPOL's Haukka-Konu said two of the mission's cars were moving in convoy "but only one was involved in the blast."

Afghan policemen carry an injured man after the attack in Kabul  Photo: REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement emailed to media. The Taliban, who have waged war in Afghanistan for more than a decade, launched their warm weather offensive in late April.

The insurgents claimed responsibility for an attack on a Kabul guesthouse last week that left 14 people dead, including nine foreigners.

U.S. soldiers arrive at the site of a car bomb attack in Kabul  Photo: REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

Earlier Sunday, a magnetic bomb attached to a vehicle exploded in the eastern suburbs of Kabul, wounding one person, Sediqqi said. And late Saturday, an explosion inside the campus of Kabul University wounded two