Five killed in car-bomb attack on Afghan police

KABUL (Reuters) - A vehicle packed with rockets blew up outside police headquarters in the Afghan capital on Saturday, killing five people and wounding two, the government said.

The Taliban, which relies heavily on suicide and roadside bombs in their insurgency against the government and foreign troops, claimed responsibility for the bombing, which a Defense Ministry official had earlier said was a suicide attack.

"It was a remote-controlled explosion in a mini-truck vehicle packed with rockets near the office of city police," an Interior Ministry official said.

The five dead were civilians, he said.

The vehicle was packed with BM12 rockets pointing towards the police chief's office, a police official said. About five of the rockets failed to explode, he said.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility.

In early December, Taliban suicide bombers attacked twice in Kabul around the time of a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

A bomber slammed his car into a bus filled with Afghan soldiers in Kabul on December 5, killing 13 people. On December 4, a NATO convoy was hit by a similar attack close to the international airport. There were no NATO casualties, but 22 Afghans were wounded.

The worst suicide attack in Kabul hit an army bus in September and killed 28 army personnel.

More than 10,000 people have been killed in the past two years, the bloodiest period since the Taliban's overthrow in 2001. An increasing number of Afghans are frustrated with the lack of progress toward peace.

(By Hamid Shalizi; editing by Robert Birsel and Grant McCool)