US soldiers, Afghan wounded in Kabul attack

Two American soldiers and an Afghan interpreter were seriously wounded when a small grenade was thrown into their vehicle in central Kabul yesterday, the US military said.

Afghan officials said they had arrested a male teenager carrying two hand grenades, who confessed to carrying out the attack "for the cause of Muslims in Palestine and Afghanistan".

Another man was arrested after he was seen running from the scene of the attack.

One of the US soldiers was wounded in the head and the lower left leg, while the other sustained a shrapnel wound to the right leg, said Lieutenant Tina Kroske, a spokeswoman for the US military in Afghanistan.

"Their injuries are not critical, but serious," she said. A US military statement said the men reached hospital at the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in their own vehicle. An ISAF official said they were in stable condition.

The US statement said an "explosive device" was thrown into the soldiers' vehicle as it was driving near the presidential palace. It did not name the casualties.

Afghan police and security men blocked the main road leading to the site of the attack, less than a kilometre from the palace. Witnesses said US soldiers also went to the scene. Shopkeepers and passersby said they saw a man throwing an object, then an explosion. Blood could be seen on the road.

Deputy Interior Minister Hilaluddin Hilal told Reuters a teenager of 17 to 19 had already confessed to the attack.

There are about 8,000 American troops in Afghanistan hunting for remnants of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and their allies from the ousted Taliban regime.

Thousands of allied soldiers are helping the US-led military operation, and there are also around 4,700 ISAF foreign peacekeepers in Kabul.

Around 40 US personnel have been killed in combat and non-combat incidents and more than 300 have been hurt over the past year.

The attack came while Afghan President Hamid Karzai was in Oslo trying to drum up more aid for the reconstruction of Afghanistan after two decades of war and foreign occupation.

Kabul has been hit by a series of explosions this year, the worst in early September when a car bomb in the city centre killed 26 people and injured dozens more.

On December 5 Afghan police said they had averted a potentially deadly explosion at a main mosque in Kabul, where thousands of Muslims gathered to offer special prayers to mark Eid al-Fitr celebrations.

Last month at least five rockets landed outside an ISAF base in Kabul. Afghan officials have blamed followers of the former Taliban regime and al Qaeda network for the attacks.