23 killed in Afghanistan

A busload of Nepali security guards were among 23 people killed in a string of bombings across Afghanistan yesterday, days after Washington expanded the US military's authority to strike the insurgents.

The Taliban claimed the first attack which killed 14 Nepali security guards working for the Canadian Embassy in Kabul in a massive blast that left their yellow mini bus spattered with blood.

The insurgents also claimed a second, smaller blast in south Kabul targeting a local politician that the interior ministry said killed one person and injured five others, including the politician.

The Kabul blasts were followed just hours later by an attack on a market in the remote northeastern province of Badakhshan that authorities said killed at least eight people and wounded 18, with the death toll set to rise.

The wave of violence comes ten days after Washington announced an expansion of the US military's authority to conduct air strikes against the Taliban, a significant boost for Afghan forces who have limited close air-support capacities.

Last month the militants, who have stepped up attacks in recent weeks as part of their annual spring offensive, named Haibatullah Akhundzada their new leader, in a swift power transition after former head Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan.

Police said the attack on the Nepali guards was carried out by a suicide bomber on foot shortly before 6:00 am on a main road leading east out of the capital towards the city of Jalalabad.

"As a result 14 foreigners were killed, all Nepali nationals," the interior ministry said in a statement, adding that nine other people were wounded, including five Nepali citizens and four Afghans.

Meanwhile, Afghan lawmakers yesterday approved President Ashraf Ghani's nominees for defence minister and intelligence director, two crucial posts that sat vacant for months as the country struggles to rein in an ascendant insurgency.

MPs voted for Abdullah Habibi, formerly a senior official in the defence ministry who holds the rank of army general, to become its new minister.