Suicide bomber kills self, child in Afghan attack

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber rammed a taxi into a convoy of U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing himself and a child and wounding five including a foreign soldier, a government official said.

Taliban insurgents have mounted an intense campaign of bombings, ambushes and raids this year in the bloodiest phase of violence since they were ousted in 2001 after refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden.

Most of the violence has been in the country's south and east, in provinces bordering Pakistan. The Wednesday attack on a U.S.-led coalition convoy parked near a government building was in the eastern province of Khost.

"The suicide attacker was blown to pieces and a 12-year-old was killed on his way to school," said Mirza Jon Nimgari, administrative chief of Yaqoobi district, where the attack took place.

A vehicle belonging to the U.S-led force was damaged and one of its soldiers wounded, he said. A spokeswoman for the force said she had not information about the attack.

In a separate incident, 10 civilians were wounded when explosives hidden in a cart blew up in the southern town of Spin Boldak on the Pakistani border, police said.

The Taliban are fighting to expel foreign forces and defeat the Western-backed government.

More than 1,300 people have been killed in violence in Afghanistan this year, most of them militants.