Nato’s International Security Assistance Force, which has 130,000 US-led troops in Afghanistan, has also noted a spike in attacks countrywide in recent months, since the start of the insurgents’ annual summer offensive.

“A remote-controlled mine struck a civilian minibus in Paghman district around 5:00 am today, killing eight people and injuring five,” Kabul police chief General Ayoub Salangi told AFP.The man who set off the bomb had been captured with the cooperation of local residents, Salangi said, describing him as a member of the Taliban waging an insurgency against the Afghan government.

All the dead were men, he said, apparently on their way to work in what is a usually peaceful area on the western outskirts of the city.Meanwhile, a powerful suicide truck bomb exploded at a Nato military base in Puli Alam here on Tuesday, wounding three soldiers and at least 17 civilians, Afghan police said.

A spokesman for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force confirmed “there has been an explosion outside an ISAF facility in Logar province” and that some troops were wounded.“We have information that ISAF members were wounded but it is our policy not to confirm the number or condition of the injured,” he said, adding that the cause of the explosion was under investigation.

Provincial police chief Ghulam Sakhi Rogh Lewanai told AFP: “A truck loaded with explosives detonated at the coalition forces’ camp in (the provincial capital) Puli Alam city.“So far we have information that 17 Afghan civilians and three ISAF soldiers have been injured,” he said.

Most of the civilians worked at the base, he said. ISAF said the explosion was outside the base, near an Afghan bazaar.Although the first two checkpoints on the approach to the base were visible there was no sign of an explosion, he said, adding that police and residents told him that the blast happened further on towards the base.

Meanwhile, a bomb strapped to a donkey by Taliban insurgents killed an Afghan district police chief and wounded three others, an official said Tuesday.“When the district police chief’s vehicle was passing, the bomb was exploded by remote control, killing the police chief on the spot,” provincial spokesman Abdulhai Khatibi told AFP. Three other policemen were injured, he said, blaming the attack on Taliban militants.