Afghan blasts kill four, injure 37

KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives north of the Afghan capital, killing two people and injuring 20, including two U.S. soldiers, while two other civilians were killed in blasts in the south, officials said on Monday.

The suicide attacker struck as Afghan provincial authorities and U.S. forces held a weekly meeting inside the office of the governor of Parwan province in the local capital of Charikar, a politician from the province told Reuters.

A U.S. military vehicle burst into flames after being hit by the blast, the politician said, and U.S. forces blocked off the area in Charikar, 60 km (37 miles) north of Kabul.

Two U.S. soldiers were wounded in the incident, a U.S. military official said, without giving further details.

Interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary, in Kabul, said no provincial officials were killed in the attack, the latest in a spell of intensifying violence this year in Afghanistan.

"The suicide car bomber blow himself up outside the governor's office on the road," Bashary said.

"The car belonging to foreigners was his target and the attack has resulted in the deaths of two Afghan civilians and 18 more were wounded," he said. "A translator for the foreigners and possibly some of them have been wounded too."

The incident came a day after 16 people, 14 of them children, were killed in a suicide attack outside a government building in southeastern Khost province, according to NATO-led forces.

Separately on Monday, two Afghan civilians were killed and 17 more, including a policeman, were wounded in two simultaneous blasts in the southern town of Spin Boldak, which lies on the border with Pakistan, the interior ministry said.

Afghanistan is going through the bloodiest period of violence since U.S.-led troops overthrew the Taliban government in 2001, despite the deployment of more foreign troops.

Nearly 5,000 people, including more than 200 foreign troops, have been killed this year in the country, which some analysts say may slide back into anarchy.

The al Qaeda-backed Taliban, who have made a comeback since 2005, are largely active in southern and eastern areas, dominated by ethnic Pashtuns who form the bulk of the militants near the border with Pakistan.

U.S.-led troops overthrew the Taliban government after it refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders wanted by Washington for masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States.

More than seven years on, several Taliban and al Qaeda leaders are still at large.

Factors such as endemic corruption, lack of the rule of law, insecurity, slow economic development and civilian casualties caused by foreign troops while hunting militants, have helped the Taliban regain public support and attract recruits.

There are about 70,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, and the United States plans to send up to 30,000 more by the summer.

(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Dean Yates and Gillian Murdoch)