Suicide bomber attacks military convoy near Kabul

The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing Friday that wounded six people near the Afghan capital, while Britain's prime minister suggested 5,000 more NATO troops could be deployed to the troubled country.

NATO said the suicide bombing occurred at 8 a.m. (0330 GMT) on the Jalalabad road, which is used extensively by international forces and frequently attacked. In August, another Taliban suicide bomber targeted a NATO convoy there killing at least eight people.

NATO said reports on Friday's attack indicated Afghan civilians, NATO service members and civilian contractors had been wounded. No NATO members were killed.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid sent The Associated Press a message saying the bombing was carried out by a Taliban suicide car bomber targeting an international military convoy.

Abdul Ghafar Sayed Zada, chief of criminal investigation for Kabul police, said three civilians and three foreigners were wounded.

At the scene Nabi, a taxi driver, said he was driving down the road when he heard a "big bang."

"Everything went dark," said Nabi, who like many Afghans uses one name. "I just managed to take myself out of the area. I don't know what happened then, but the attack was on the foreigners."

Lt. Col. Todd Vician, a spokesman for NATO, said the bombing was "another attack by insurgents that injured the people of Afghanistan and our personnel who are partnering with the Afghan security forces to bring better development, governance and security to Afghanistan."

"This attack will not deter us from continuing our important mission," he said.

NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has asked for an extra 40,000 troops to be sent to Afghanistan to bolster the 71,000 already here.

But President Barack Obama has not yet made a decision on sending more troops - a delay that has found an echo in Europe, where coalition leaders in NATO are weighing whether to send help or bow to public demands for a speedy exit.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Thursday that allied nations have privately pledged more help, but he stopped short of saying that countries would send more troops.

On Friday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he could secure commitments for 5,000 more NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Speaking during an interview with the BBC, Brown said Washington and London need the 43 other nations involved in the International Security Assistance Force to step up to help share the burden.

"I think we can probably get another 5,000 forces into Afghanistan," he said.

With 9,000 troops in the country, Britain is the second largest contributor to the international coalition behind the United States. But the war is increasingly unpopular at home. Some 232 British soldiers have died in Afghanistan since 2001. Families and military commanders have blamed deaths on a lack of equipment, and there has been growing criticism that Brown has failed to show tangible benefits of the mission.

In his interview, Brown launched an impassioned defense of the controversial military campaign, acknowledging that Britain needed to "adjust our approach" amid rising casualties.

Germany announced Friday that it would send more than 100 extra troops to Afghanistan in January.

Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said during a visit to his country's troops in Afghanistan that the quick-reaction force soldiers would be deployed in the northern province of Kunduz, where most of Germany's 4,365 troops are stationed.

Thirty-six German soldiers have been killed so far in the mission to Afghanistan, and support in Germany for the war is also low.

Separately, a land mine exploded near a police station in Logar province, south of Kabul, killing a member of the Afghan National Police and wounding an Afghan National Army officer Friday, provincial police chief Mustafa Mosseini said.

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Associated Press writer Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.