Kabul  - Five school children were killed in a suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan, while three more children were killed in a rocket attack in capital Kabul, officials said Sunday.

A suicide bomber targeted a government building in Mandozai district of south-eastern province of Khost on Sunday morning, killing eight people and wounding 50 others, Mohammad Yaqoub Khan, security chief of Khost police forces said.

He said that the bomber detonated his explosive-packed vehicle after he was stopped by Afghan security forces from entering the district chief's office, where dozens of local tribal elders had gathered for a meeting on security situation.

Asif Nang, spokesman for the Ministry of Education said that five school children were killed and 15 others were wounded in the attack.

Among those killed in the blast were three security personnel, who were guarding the building at the time of the attack, Khan said, adding that US forces were also present in a compound close to the attack site, but none of them were hurt. The bomber also died in the explosion.

Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid claimed the responsibility for the attack and said that one of their fighters, Qari Hamidullah, carried out the attack by a Toyota-Surf vehicle.

Mujahid who was talking by phone from an undisclosed location said that 20 Afghan and foreign soldiers were killed in the attack that was carried out by a vehicle laden with 1,500 kilograms of explosives.

Taliban militants who were driven from power in late 2001, have increasingly relied on the use of suicide and roadside attacks in the country.

In another incident, three members of a family were killed and four others were wounded when a rocket fired from an unknown location hit their house in the western part of Kabul city on Saturday night, Alishah Paktiawal, head of criminal investigative department of Kabul police said.

"Three young sisters were killed and four others including a man and three women were wounded in the attack," he said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned both attacks and said that the perpetrators could not elude the punishment by Afghan government.

Kabul city has witnessed several suicide attacks this year, but rocket assaults are rare. The attack raised concerns that insurgents were edging closer to the base of the Western-backed government.

In another separate incident, US-led coalition troops killed four militants in an operation in Sarobi district of Kabul province on Saturday, US military said in a statement.

Another militant was killed and six detained by the combined forces in a separate operation in Gyan district of south-eastern province of Paktika also on Saturday, the statement added.

NATO-led forces, meanwhile, arrested a Taliban commander, who was involved in attacks against Afghan and international fores, in central Logar province on Saturday, the alliance said in a statement.

The detained commander, whose identity was not disclosed in the statement, was involved in planning of an ambush against the provincial governor of Logar, the statement added.

Despite the presence of nearly 70,000 foreign forces and seven years from the fall of the Taliban regime, the militants are still a force to be reckoned with. Over the past two years, the Taliban-led insurgents have extended their to larger swathes of the country.

The militants have vowed to continue their insurgency throughout the harsh Afghan winter months. (dpa)