A suicide bombing at the Afghan army killed nine people and wounded eight on Saturday, in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

A powerful explosion in Afghanistan - Archive

A suicide bombing at the Afghan army headquarters in the country's east killed nine people and wounded eight on Saturday, officials said, in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to AFP news agency.

The attacker - dressed in an Afghan police uniform - detonated his explosives at the base in the Gambiri area near Jalalabad city, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province, said Mohammad Nooman Hatifi, the Afghan army spokesman for eastern Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Major Tim James, said there had been "a number of both Afghan and ISAF casualties" in the attack but could not yet give further details.

He added that there were over 100 ISAF troops at the base in Laghman province, primarily tasked with mentoring the Afghan army.

A car bomb attack on NATO troops in Afghanistan - Archive

The defense ministry in Kabul confirmed there had been a suicide attack at the base but did not give further details. The area has now been cordoned off.

The blast came a day after the provincial police chief of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, Khan Mohammad Mujahid, was killed in a suicide bombing claimed by the Taliban which also killed his two bodyguards.

There has been a recent spike in suicide bombings -- a key Taliban tactic -- in Afghanistan, with authorities reporting nine in the last few days.

Militancy is on the rise across Afghanistan despite the presence of nearly 150,000 US-led foreign troops there. Violence in the war-torn country is at its worst level since the overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001.

NATO has admitted that militants have increased their power in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion of the Asian country.

About 130,000 international troops are stationed in Afghanistan, two-thirds of them from the United States, battling the Taliban and other insurgents.

Limited withdrawals from seven relatively peaceful areas of the country are due to start in July ahead of the planned end of foreign combat operations in 2014.

Afghan security forces are due to take increasing responsibility for their own country's security as foreign troops pull back.

They are frequently the target of attacks by the Taliban, who have been fighting an insurgency since 2001 when a US-led invasion ousted them from power.

The Afghan Interior Ministry recently said that last year saw an increase in the number of civilians' deaths since the US-led invasion in 2001.

The ministry stated that more than 2,000 civilians lost their lives in violence across Afghanistan, making 2010 the deadliest year ever for civilian casualties in the war-hit country.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned at a NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Berlin on Thursday that nations involved in Afghanistan should not rush to exit due to "political expediency and short-term thinking".

"We have to steel ourselves and our publics for the possibility that the Taliban will resort to the most destructive and sensational attacks we have seen," she said.

In 2010, as many as 711 foreign troops lost their lives in Afghanistan -- an average of two a day -- which is by far greater than the annual toll of 521 during 2009, according to AFP.