A suicide attack hit downtown Kabul early Thursday, causing an unknown number of casualties, a private TV channel said.

Thick smoke was bellowing from an area close to the Interior Ministry and the Indian embassy, a police officer said.

Tolo, a private TV channel, said several people had been killed or wounded and the wall surrounding the embassy had been destroyed.

Kabul has seen a series of suicide attacks in the past two months.

The British general due to take charge of British and other NATO troops in southern Afghanistan has said that the forces do not have the "luxury of time" on their side.

Major General Nick Carter, who will take charge of 45,000 troops in the region in six weeks' time, said there was an opportunity to "make a difference" in the next year.

India and Afghanistan Tuesday resolved to intensify cooperation to combat terrorism, describing it as the "most important security threat" in the region and established a partnership council to boost developmental ties.

Four US soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in eastern Afghanistan, a military spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul had said in a statement that four of its soldiers were killed in the blast on Monday, but did not reveal their nationalities.

An Afghan provincial official said that US forces killed a former police officer in central Logar province, while 19 Taliban fighters were killed in two separate clashes elsewhere in the country, officials said Saturday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will not attend the G8 meeting in Rome this week which is to deal with the situation in Afghanistan, ISNA news agency reported Wednesday.

"I have no plan to go," Mottaki said at the end of a cabinet meeting in Tehran.

Slovak parliament Friday agreed to deploy up to 16 additional troops with NATO's International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan in 2009.

The 150-seat house voted 134-0 to expand Slovakia's contingent by up to 11 troops and five military medics.

Using small arms, boobytraps and rockets, Taliban insurgents notched up a succession of casualties on the new company of Estonian troops within a month of them deploying in southern Afghanistan.

A burst of rifle fire severely wounded one soldier on the first patrol by Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, and a comrade lost his legs to a home-made bomb two weeks later.