“Six civilians were martyred and 18 other civilians were wounded in the suicide car bomb attack against coalition forces,” General Salim Ahsas said.

Ahsas said the blast did not harm US-led troops who were travelling on the road to Kabul's international airport when the bomb exploded.

The blast took place during morning rush hour on one of the city's busiest roads. The force of the blast damaged about 10 cars, General Ali Shah Paktiawal, head of the police criminal investigation branch told AFP.

The wounded were rushed to different hospitals in the city, he added.

There was blood and flesh scattered over the road, an AFP reporter at the scene said, along with the wreckage of cars, while other vehicles were on fire.

Two armoured vehicles -- apparently the target of the attack -- were also damaged, the AFP reporter said.
A spokesperson for the US-led forces in Afghanistan could not immediately comment on the incident.

The Taliban, an Islamic militant group that was in government in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, confirmed it was behind the blast -- similar to scores of others carried out by the insurgents.

"We claim responsibility for the suicide attack in Kabul today. The attack was against two foreign military vehicles which killed all the soldiers in the two vehicles," a Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed in a telephone call from an unknown location.