Italy wants to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible, Silvio Berlusconi said yesterday after a suicide bomber killed six Italian soldiers in one of the worst attacks suffered by a Nato contingent in Kabul. But the Italian Prime Minister insisted that there was no timetable and any decision would be made with Italy’s allies.

At least ten Afghan civilians also died when explosives packed in a lorry were detonated next to a Nato convoy. Four Italian troops and 50 Afghans were wounded. The explosion blew an Italian armoured vehicle across two lanes of traffic, destroying a number of other cars and smashing shopfronts and stalls. The blast could be heard across the capital.

Nato troops, including British soldiers, prised the bodies of several Italian soldiers out of the wreckage of one of the destroyed vehicles, which lay on its side amid bloodied helmets, ammunition belts and military backpacks.

The only remains of the suicide bomber’s lorry was the engine block lying by the side of the road. The Taleban claimed responsibility.

The attack was the deadliest strike against Italian forces since November 2003, when a car bomb killed 19 Carabinieri in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, hastening Italy’s withdrawal from the country.

Some of the outrage at the Kabul bombing was directed at the Italians for presenting what was perceived to be an obvious target in the bustling civilian area. “It is all because of them,” an Afghan shopkeeper shouted. “Look at these civilians butchered by the blast. Why are they driving in daylight in crowded areas?”

At a meeting of EU heads of state in Brussels last night Mr Berlusconi, who was also Prime Minister at the time of the Iraq pullout, said: “We are all anxious and hopeful to bring our boys home as soon as possible. We are all convinced that it is better for everyone to leave Afghanistan soon.”

Italy was already planning a “strong reduction” in its 3,100 troops in Afghanistan, but Mr Berlusconi said that it would not decide to withdraw unilaterally, He said Italy was “dealing with an international question that you can’t decide on your own because that would betray an accord”.

Franco Frattini, the Italian Foreign Minister, said that his country’s commitment to keeping troops there would not be shaken. “It is precisely in these moments of difficulty that we must remain close to the Afghans and not forget that our presence there serves both their and our security.”

The Afghan casualties included a man and his wife who had been shopping for clothes for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

As Afghan police pushed back the crowd of onlookers, occasionally beating people with sticks, a man in a bloodied robe hurried past with a shocked little boy in his arms.

“We were going past the shops when there was a big explosion, and we were both wounded,” said the man, heading off to find a hospital. A small clinic in the row of mud-brick shops was wrecked by the explosion, which punched a hole into the surface of the road.

There were angry confrontations between Italian soldiers collecting evidence from the explosion and Afghan crime-scene investigators, who tried to remove some of the debris for their own inquiries. The Italian soldiers forced the Afghans to leave all the debris to them.

Nato convoys can often be seen driving through the capital, and they have little choice other than to use the congested roads to move between bases around the city.

Unlike Iraq, where US military vehicles carry warnings to drivers to stay at least 100m away or risk being shot, Nato convoys mingle closely with the traffic in the crowded city centre.

In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI called the killings “horrible” and condemned the bombing. “He sends his thoughts to the families of the wounded and all people affected by this horrible attack,” his spokesman said. “Let efforts for peace continue despite this terrible violence.”

In August, a suicide car bomb attack on the Kabul headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force killed seven Afghan civilians. There are about 100,000 US and Nato troops in Afghanistan facing down an increasingly powerful Taleban insurgency.

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