No US soldiers killed in Kabul blast: military

No US soldiers were killed in a suicide blast outside the biggest US military base in the Afghan capital Kabul Saturday and only five were wounded, the US military said, correcting an earlier statement two troops had died and 12 were hurt.

Afghan officials have said two civilians were also killed and about two dozen wounded in the blast, which was claimed by the Taliban insurgent group.

"It was a suicide bombing," defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told reporters at the scene, where a tanker, apparently for waste collection, and several cars were in flames on a debris-littered road.

"Twenty-three people have been admitted to the hospitals. We have two martyred," he told AFP later.

Azimi had first said a child and two adults were killed, but investigations later found that one of these was the bomber.

"Two US service members were killed and 12 others have been wounded," the US military said in a statement, adding its initial reports indicated the blast was caused by a suicide car bomb.

One of the wounded was a woman, an AFP photographer said. Witnesses saw one soldier being lowered from the top of a high wall around the heavily fortified base, but it was not clear if he was alive or dead.

The blast was about 100 metres (yards) from the perimeter of Camp Eggers, Lieutenant Colonel Christian Kubik told AFP.

Windows at the base were broken but there was no significant damage, he said. "The camp was not breached," Kubik said.

It was not immediately clear what the soldiers had been doing, US military spokesman Colonel Jerry O'Hara told AFP after reports that there may have been a foreign military convoy passing by.

"This incident will only strengthen our collective resolve to aggressively pursue enemy networks before they can hurt innocent Afghans and coalition forces," he said in a statement.

A witness named Ranjeet said some of the wounded were municipal cleaners.

"I saw four, five people, municipality workers, lying on the street. They were screaming and asking for help. Later ambulances came and picked them up," he told AFP.

Another man, Mohammad Babur, said he arrived at the scene minutes after the blast after being called by his brother who had been wounded in the explosion and was taken to hospital.

"I saw one dead body which was badly shattered. I saw several wounded," he said.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahed, told reporters the attack was a suicide blast carried out by one of its men. The target was two German embassy vehicles in the area, he said

The Taliban, an extremist Islamic group, ran the government in Kabul from 1996 to 2001 and are now waging a deadly insurgency to take back power.

The Afghan capital suffered a rash of attacks last year, fuelling fears that the insurgency, which sees most violence in the south and east of the country, was encroaching on the capital.

On November 27 a suicide car bomb also claimed by the Taliban blew up near the US embassy and killed four Afghan civilians.

The worst suicide attack on the capital was in July last year when an explosives-packed vehicle rammed into the gates of the Indian embassy, causing an explosion that killed around 60 people including two Indian diplomats.

Last year was the worst of the insurgency and military commanders have called for more troops and equipment.

The new administration of US president-elect Barack Obama is expected to send in up to 30,000 more troops in the next few months, almost doubling the number of US soldiers in the country.