Afghan killed in attack targeting US firm

MAZAR-I-SHARIF (AFP) - A suicide attack aimed at US private security contractors in northern Afghanistan killed an Afghan civilian and wounded another on Monday, officials said.

The bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body as an armoured vehicle from the US firm Dyncorp slowed down at a speed bump in Kunduz city, provincial police chief Mohammad Ayob Salangi said.

"One civilian in the area was martyred and another civilian was wounded," said Kunduz provincial governor Mohammed Omar, adding there were no foreign casualties.

A spokesman for German troops stationed in the province with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force confirmed the suicide blast and said none of its soldiers were involved.

"The suicide attack was against an American organisation, Dyncorp. There were no German forces in the area," Colonel Guntu Schelmann told AFP.

Previously calm northern Afghanistan has suffered a rash of recent blasts blamed on a spreading insurgency led by the radical Taliban movement, whose attacks have usually targeted southern and eastern Afghanistan.

Private security firms protecting foreign businesses, military bases and a host of organisations in Afghanistan have been targeted by militants on a number of occasions.

A blast outside the Kabul offices of Dyncorp in August 2004 killed nine people including four foreign Dyncorp employees.

The firm was not immediately available for comment.

There are more than 50,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan working alongside Afghan security forces fighting Taliban-led militants.