Afghan attack targets anti-Taliban MP

The blast was the first suicide attack in heavily guarded Kabul since October, and comes near the end of Afghanistan's bloodiest year since the ultra-Islamic Taliban were ousted from power in 2001.

An explosives-laden vehicle detonated near a car belonging to MP Padshah Khan Zadran, about 50 metres (yards) away from his residence in eastern Kabul, police criminal investigation chief Ali Shah Paktiawal told AFP.

"The suicide attacker rammed his bomb-filled vehicle into Zadran's car as his car left the house but fortunately he was not in the vehicle," Paktiawal said.

"Three of his bodyguards in his car were wounded, along with five civilian passers-by," he said.

Blood and parts of the attacker's body were strewn across the road, and the MP's car was badly damaged, an AFP photographer at the scene of the blast said.

Zadran, the leader of an ethnic Pashtun tribe and a former anti-Soviet fighter, is an MP for southeastern Paktia province. He has often criticised the Taliban and accused neighbouring Pakistan of aiding them.

The bodyguards and civilians, who include some of his relatives, were in a critical condition, police said.

They said that in mid-December they had arrested an Afghan national named Rasoul Khan Sartak on charges of planning to assassinate Zadram. The suspect is in currently in police custody.

"Rasoul Khan Sartak has confessed he was sent on a mission to assassinate Padshah Khan Zardarn and we have convincing documents. He is in our custody now," said Paktiawal.

Earlier five Afghan policemen were killed Friday when a roadside bomb blast ripped through their vehicle in southern Afghanistan, officials said.

The police were on patrol some 10km from Tirinkot, the capital of troubled Uruzgan province, when the remote-controlled device exploded, said provincial spokesman Abdul Qayoom Qayoomi.

"Five police were martyred in the blast near Tirinkot," he said.