KANDAHAR, Sept 27: A suicide car bomb exploded near a Canadian military convoy in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday while officials reported they had killed 14 Taliban rebels elsewhere.

The suicide attack in the southern city of Kandahar missed the Canadian convoy and wounded an Afghan civilian, police said.

The blast was so powerful that it tore the car containing the explosives into chunks, a reporter at the scene said. Pieces of the attacker’s body were strewn across the site.

The incidents followed a major attack on Tuesday that killed 18 people in the town of Lashkar Gah, about 145 kilometres to the west.

The Kandahar blast was near a busy intersection that sees most of the city’s regular suicide attacks aimed at foreign troops.

There are around 2,300 Canadian soldiers in Kandahar province as part of a Nato-led force which is operating alongside the US-led coalition to help Afghan forces defeat the resurgent Taliban militia.

Meanwhile Afghan and coalition soldiers killed eight Taliban and captured 16 others.—AFP