A large suicide car bomb struck a convoy of military vehicles near the American Embassy in Kabul today, killing at least 16 people, including two US soldiers.

The blast happened as Nato chiefs met in Warsaw to discuss an appeal from the alliance's top military commander for reinforcements to combat resurgent Taleban militants in Afghanistan. A British general said that the fighting in the volatile south was now more ferocious than in Iraq.

Around 30 people, mainly civilian bystanders, were wounded in the explosion, which tore a military Humvee into two burning chunks and scattered debris over a 50-metre radius.

The force of the blast rattled windows and sent a plume of brown smoke hundreds of feet into the sky.

Sixteen people were killed and 29 wounded, said Ali Shah Paktiawal, criminal director of the Kabul police. The bomber also died.

Najibullah Faizi, 25, a bystander, said that he saw a blue Toyota Corolla driven by a young, heavily set man speed past another car on the inside lane before ramming one of two US Humvees in a convoy.

"I fell to the ground after the blast. American soldiers started shooting at another car nearby. There was smoke and flames everywhere," Faizi told reporters.

Dozens of US and British soldiers cordoned off the scene as investigators sifted through the wreckage of the charred military vehicle. Soldiers retrieved debris and placed it in plastic bags for further investigation.

The blast happened about 50m from Massoud Square, the landmark public space named in honour of the anti-Taleban warlord who was murdered on September 9, 2001, and 100m from the main gate of the heavily fortified US embassy compound.

The attack comes amid the deadliest spate of violence in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taleban. Nato peacekeeping troops have been engaged in close-quarters fighting as militants mount direct onslaughts on government compounds in rural areas.

General James Jones, the American Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, yesterday spelt out a shopping list of extra troops, helicopters, and transport aircraft to bolster Nato's increasingly beleaguered mission to secure the country.

After a visit to Kabul to be briefed on Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) campaign, General Jones took the unusual step of voicing in public his dismay that the 26-nation alliance had failed to provide the troops and equipment needed for such a dangerous mission.

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