New York - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday said he deplored the car bombing that killed seven Afghan civilians, two Afghan UN staffers and one NATO soldier, in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Ban said he was "deeply distressed" by news of the attack. He conveyed "his deepest condolences to the families of those killed and his best wishes for a rapid recovery to those who were injured."

The Islamist extremist Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on an international convoy, which also wounded 53 Afghan civilians, and two NATO soldiers, as another bomber on Tuesday attacked an army checkpoint in the southern province of Uruzgan, killing five people.

The bombings came two days before Afghans go to the polls to directly elect a president for only the second time in their history and raised concerns in the war-weary Central Asian country that the elections would be overshadowed by violence.(dpa)