Afghan medical attendant carries the body of a police officer on a stretcher after he was killed in an explosion in Kandahar, February 7, 2006

In Afghanistan, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle has killed at least 13 people and wounded 13 others, while a roadside bomb killed a Turkish engineer.

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Yousuf Stanezai, says the suicide attack in Kandahar demolished a guard post outside the city's heavily-guarded police headquarters. He says seven of those killed were police and the rest were civilians.

A purported Taleban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Also Tuesday, in Farah province, a Turkish engineer was killed when a bomb struck his car on a highway linking the western city of Herat to Kandahar.

And, a bomb attached to a bicycle exploded in the town of Spin Boldak near Pakistan, wounding at least one civilian.

Violence has been increasing in Afghanistan as NATO prepares to expand its peacekeeping force into the volatile south.