The Taliban militia claimed responsibility for a car bomb in Kabul, which a spokesman from President Hamid Karzai's office said killed at least two US nationals, three Nepalis, and two Afghans, including a child.

At least nine children and one adult died in the earlier explosion at the school, a US military spokeswoman said.

A Western official at the scene of Sunday's blast in front of the offices of international security company DynCorp said he expected the death toll from the car bomb to rise.

"I think there will be more dead than that. Some bodies were just blown to pieces," the official said. Initial assessments suggested the car bomb contained 175-220 lb of explosive.

Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said it was detonated by a Taliban fighter by remote control.

"A few minutes ago he phoned our chief ... to say that he finished his mission and is alive," Hakimi said.

The Taliban was ousted from power by a US-led alliance in late 2001 and is now waging a campaign of violence to disrupt Afghanistan's first presidential elections on Oct. 9.

The blast in the up market Shar-i-Naw area of Kabul, where dozens of aid agencies are located, also injured an unspecified number of people and destroyed several vehicles, an Afghan official said.

"This was an attack at the heart of the international community and one that may be directed at US assets," said Nick Downie, manager of the Afghanistan NGO Security Office.

Afghan police cordoned off the site as ambulances rushed to the area, witnesses said.

There are over 8,000 NATO-led peacekeepers in charge of security in Kabul and northern Afghanistan. Staff at international organizations have been advised to lie low and increase security.

School blast

The earlier explosion ripped through a religious school in Paktia Province on Saturday night, but the cause was not immediately clear.

"There were four children, five teenagers and one adult killed," US military spokeswoman Master Sergeant Ann Bennett said from the US military press center in Kabul.

Bennett said an 8-year-old boy injured in the blast was being treated at a US military base, but was unsure how many others were hurt.  

"The explosion took place last night inside a private madrassah (religious school)," Paktia Governor Haji Assadullah Wafa told Reuters by satellite phone.

The school was in the village of Naiknaam, near the town of Zormat, 80 miles south of Kabul, according to the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press agency.

The premises were also used by a non-government organization for teaching Afghan women.

Paktia's governor said there were contradictory reports about the cause of the blast, with some saying it was an explosive device placed on a motorcycle parked outside the school and others saying a device was planted inside the school.

No one has claimed responsibility.

Some 18,000 US-led troops along with the newly formed Afghan National Army are hunting insurgents in the country's south and southeast.

Close to 1,000 people, including militants, soldiers, civilians, aid workers and election officials have been killed in the past year.

On Friday, one of the Taliban's senior commanders was killed in a gun battle with US-led forces and Afghan troops.

Commander Roozi Khan was killed in Shah Joy district of Zabul Province in southern Afghanistan, Hakimi said, confirming a report on Sunday by the US military.

(China Daily via agencies August 30, 2004)