KABUL, 31 May 2005 — A bicycle bomb targeting a NATO-led vehicle exploded yesterday near Kabul, wounding at least seven Afghans, hours after a rocket was fired at the peacekeeping force’s headquarters in the capital, officials said.

Taleban militants claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The twin attacks, which caused no casualties among members of the 8,300-strong International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, highlighted the deteriorating security situation in Kabul.

The remote-controlled bomb was set on a bicycle left on the side of the main road from Kabul to eastern Jalalabad city and detonated at about 9:30 a.m. (0500 GMT), district police chief Mohammed Akbar told AFP.

“Seven people were injured, some of them seriously: Four were in a taxi passing by, three were pedestrians,” Akbar said. “The taxi driver was seriously injured and was taken to hospital.”

At the scene, where ISAF patrols pass almost every hour, pieces of metal, the remains of the blown up bicycle and the partially destroyed taxi could be seen.

“The target was obviously the ISAF patrols or aimed at creating an atmosphere of violence in the city,” Akbar added.

Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal confirmed the blast in the Hod Qhail neighborhood east of Kabul targeted an ISAF vehicle. “It was aimed at an ISAF vehicle, but missed it and struck a taxi and pedestrians passing by.” The force’s spokesman Lt. Karen Tissot van Patot told AFP no peacekeepers were injured in the blast. She said it happened nine kilometers east of the capital but gave no other details.

Around eight hours earlier a rocket shook the ISAF headquarters in central Kabul, although no one was injured in the incident.

“It impacted a military barracks accommodation,” van Patot said. “There were no injuries, and little damage to the building. An investigation team is currently working on this explosion.”

No one claimed responsibility for either of the attacks yesterday. However Afghanistan’s ousted hard-line Taleban militia has stepped up violence elsewhere in the country during the past month and security has also deteriorated in Kabul.

An Italian aid worker who was dragged from her car in the capital by armed gunmen two weeks ago appeared on a video aired by an Afghan television network on Sunday.

Clementina Cantoni, 32, was shown wrapped in a blanket and with two armed men with their faces covered pointing guns at her head.

Earlier this month three people including an engineer from Myanmar who was working for the United Nations were killed in a bombing at an Internet cafe in Kabul.

A car bomb exploded in April in Kabul without causing any casualties, while in late March a bomb blast which went off near the ISAF camp hit a Canadian diplomatic car, injuring four people including a Canadian.

The incidents have prompted the estimated 3,000 foreign nationals in Kabul to observe a strict curfew and avoid all unnecessary movement around the city.

Meanwhile, five Afghans died and one was injured when a minibus drove over a land mine left over from Afghanistan’s war-shattered past in the remote western province of Nimroz, which borders both Pakistan and Iran.