KABUL, Oct 23 (AFP) - The Taliban claimed responsibility for Saturday's suicide bomb attack in Kabul and promised more to come under Afghanistan's first elected president, who is just days away from being announced.
"We claim responsibility for all attacks against foreign troops in Afghanistan, as well as today's attack in Kabul," Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi told AFP by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.
"There will be more attacks around the country such as (Saturday's) attacks."
An Afghan girl was killed and nine people, including three Icelandic peacekeepers, were wounded when a bearded man with grenades strapped under his traditional long smock blew himself up in the city's bustling "Chicken Street" at 3.30pm (1100 GMT).
Five Afghans and an unidentified foreign woman were the others wounded in the attack.
Dozens of people were browsing through its bulging antique and carpet shops in autumn afternoon sunshine when the bomber struck. His ruptured body ended up on the sidewalk beneath two woven red carpets hung on display.
The attack in downtown Kabul was the boldest of several attacks by the Taliban since the October 9 presidential elections, which they failed to disrupt through violence despite pledging to do so.
It also came as the vote count neared to a close, surpassing 81 percent.
Incumbent leader Hamid Karzai, who has offered to bring moderate Taliban into a future administration, is on course for outright victory with 54.6 percent of votes.
Hakimi also claimed the Taliban were behind a small roadside bombing of a United States troop convoy in eastern Nangarhar province near the Pakistani frontier on Saturday.
Hakimi claimed "some American soldiers" were killed in the attack, but US military spokesperson Master Sergeant Wendy Frable told AFP only one suffered "very minor injuries".
US military officials had been writing off the Taliban as a demoralised, divided force after they failed to disrupt the presidential election.
But several attacks around Afghanistan since the surprisingly peaceful polling day have claimed at least 20 lives, including two US soldiers and four children.
"We didn't attack the elections because we did not want to harm and kill innocent people, but the Americans and foreign troops are our enemies," Hakimi said.
"We will remain an enemy of this government, we don't care if it is elected or selected."
In the past fortnight two Afghans have been killed in separate night-time rocket attacks on Kabul, and a remote-controlled bomb killed three children and an adult in eastern Kunar province.
Five Afghans were also killed in a roadside bomb attack in Paktika province, and two US troops were killed in similar circumstances in central Uruzgan province.
The Taliban were ousted from power by a US-led invasion at the end of 2001 for sheltering Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden, who organised the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
10/23/2004 18:32 GMT - AFP