Bomb near US embassy in Afghan capital kills four: police

A suicide car bomb blew up near the US embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul Thursday, killing at least four people and wounding several more, police and witnesses said.

The target of the attack about 60 metres (nearly 200 feet) from the heavily secured entrance to the embassy appeared to have been a passing convoy of foreign troops, an Afghan interior ministry official said.

The blast badly damaged several cars and a bus with the area packed with morning rush-hour traffic. A large pool of blood smeared the road and a tree was set alight.

"The information we have so far is that four people have been killed and three wounded. It was a suicide attack," a city police chief, General Alishah Paktiawal, told reporters at the scene.

An AFP reporter saw at least 10 wounded people removed from the scene in ambulances and police cars.

The body of the suicide attacker lay on the ground near the destroyed car apparently used to carry the bomb, he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bomb with the radical Taliban and Haqqani networks said to be behind the growing number of attacks in the capital.

The heavily barricaded US embassy, with the entire road running past it blocked to traffic, was closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday.