Kabul- A suicide bomber in police uniform blew himself up inside a police headquarters in northern Afghanistan, killing two soldiers serving with the US-led coalition and wounding eight people, including police officers, officials said Monday.

"Two coalition soldiers were killed and three wounded in an attack in northern Afghanistan," a spokesman for the US forces in Afghanistan said.

The spokesman would not reveal the nationalities of the victims, but Jaweed Basharat, a spokesman for the police chief of Baghlan province, where the attack took place, said earlier that one US soldier was killed and two were wounded in the blast.

Four Afghan police officers and one child were also injured, Basharat said.

The bomber tried to enter the police chief's office in Puli Khumri, Baghlan's capital, and blew himself up when he was stopped by the guards.

Governor Abdul Jabar Haqbeen confirmed the attack, saying the bomber planned to target the police chief and his US advisers.

But he claimed the police chief and US military officials were unhurt.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the Islamic fundamentalist militants claimed responsibility for the attack and one of their fighters, named Abdul Ahad, carried it out.

"Seven foreign soldiers and 12 Afghan soldiers were killed and several others were wounded," Mujahid said by phone from an undisclosed location.

The Taliban often give higher casualty figures for their operations than Afghan government and international military sources.

The attack was a rare occurrence in the relatively peaceful northern region as the Taliban are mostly active in the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan along its border with Pakistan.

The attack came a week after a suicide bomber on a bicycle in the neighbouring province of Kunduz killed two German soldiers and five children. Two other German soldiers and two Afghan children were wounded in the attack.

Afghan government officials warned that the rebels have penetrated the region and gained support among the Pashtuns in the region.

The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group of Afghanistan, and most of the Taliban fighters are Pashtun.

More than 4,000 people - mostly insurgents, but also hundreds of Afghan and international forces - have been killed in the Afghan conflict so far this year. (dpa)