KABUL - Taliban militants claimed responsibility for an explosion Sunday which killed a Romanian soldier in southern Afghanistan and a car bomb in the capital.
Interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said there were no casualties from the car bomb, which exploded on a road in Kabul regularly used by foreign peacekeepers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
"We claim responsibility for the explosion today in Kabul. It was a remote-controlled bomb in a vehicle targeted at an ISAF military foreigner vehicle," Abdul Latif Hakimi, who said he was a Taliban spokesman, told AFP.
Hakimi also claimed responsibility for the explosion which killed one Romanian soldier and wounded another near the southern city of Kandahar.
"We also claim responsibility for the remote-controlled bomb attack in Arghandab district, in Baba Saheb.
"There was a five-vehicle convoy of Romanian troops, and at least one vehicle was destroyed by the explosion and no one survived in this particular vehicle," Hakimi said.
The US military said the Romanians, part of the US-led coalition, were hit when a mine struck their vehicle on the outskirts of Kandahar around 5:30 pm.
"We got the confirmation that they were Romanian soldiers," US military spokeswoman Lieutenant Cindy Moore told AFP.
"Coalition forces were involved in a medical evacuation by helicopter," she said.
Moore said it was unclear whether the blast had been caused by one of the old mines which litter Afghanistan or a bomb.
Hundreds of Romanians attached to the 18,000-strong US-led coalition are stationed in Kandahar, helping US troops to hunt down militants from the ousted Taliban regime.
In Kabul, interior ministry spokesman Mashal said the car bomb appeared to have been detonated by a timer.
"It was a car bomb by the enemies of peace and stability in Afghanistan. The explosion took place at 7:00 pm (1430 GMT), but fortunately there were no casualties," Mashal, who was at the scene, told AFP.
The white and yellow Suzuki taxi was abandoned on the roadside near a roundabout in the densely populated Microrayon neighbourbood on the Kabul to Jalalabad road. The roof and doors were blown off by the blast, an AFP reporter on the site witnessed.
The blast was the first in Kabul since a bomb wounded four people on the same road on March 28 after five months of relative calm.
Violence has picked up across Afghanistan, especially in the restive south and southeast, as the weather has warmed.
The explosion in Kandahar came amid rocket attacks on the city, which was the spiritual home of the Taliban.
Three rockets were fired into the city Sunday afternoon, following another rocket attack earlier in the day, but neither caused any casualties, Afghan and Western security sources told AFP.
04/24/2005 19:06 GMT - AFP