The United Nations said yesterday it had restricted movements of its staff in Kabul after a suicide bombing killed at least 10 people, while the Taliban said it had 45 more suicide attackers awaiting orders to strike.

Wednesday's bombing at a military training center set up by US-led forces to train a new national army was the worst suicide attack in the capital since the Taliban's 2001 overthrow.

The Taliban claimed responsibility and vowed more.

UN spokesman Adrian Edwards said UN staff in the city, who are already under night-time curfew, had been placed on restricted movement as a precaution. "While we are assessing the situation, staff movement is restricted," he said.

The security office serving non-governmental organizations has told staff to stay on high alert and advised against unnecessary movement.

The threat to aid workers was underlined on Wednesday when an Afghan working for a Bangladeshi aid agency was shot dead and a Bangladeshi aid worker wounded in an attack in Parwan province north of Kabul.

Arif Islam, a project manager for the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, said it was unclear who carried out the attack that came a day after a Bangladeshi UN worker was wounded by a roadside bomb in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

In Wednesday's attack in Kabul, a suicide bomber in the uniform of an army lieutenant rammed a motorcycle into a convoy of buses carrying Afghan soldiers in the eastern part of the city, opposite a base of NATO-led peacekeepers.

Defence Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi said 10 people were killed, including the bomber. Eight were Afghan army officers or non-commissioned officers and one the civilian driver of one of the buses. Other Afghan officials said 12 people died.

Iraq-style tactics?

The bombing came 10 days after landmark parliamentary elections, which passed off relatively peacefully despite militant threats, but there has been a surge in violence since.

Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi claimed 20 deaths in the attack and said most of the victims were foreigners. "Most of them were foreign soldiers and officers but their Afghan slaves are covering this up," he said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Hakimi vowed more attacks on foreign forces and said 45 suicide bombers were awaiting orders from Taliban commanders.

"American and British forces are our first target and then we will launch attacks on others," he said.

The attack has again raised fears that insurgents may be importing Iraqi-style tactics into Afghanistan.

Newsweek magazine this month quoted a Taliban commander as saying he had been to Iraq for training and wanted to make use of the expertise acquired in Afghanistan.

While Kabul has seen several suicide attacks on foreign peacekeepers and civilians since the Taliban's overthrow, it has been spared the extent of Muslim militant violence seen in Iraq.

(China Daily September 30, 2005)