American Secret Service agents were forced to bundle Dick Cheney into a bomb shelter today when a Taleban suicide bomber attacked the main US military base in Afghanistan during a visit by the US Vice-President.

Fourteen people were killed in the attack, but Mr Cheney - who was in his room about a mile away and said later that he had heard a "loud boom" - was not hurt.

The blast near the first security gate outside the sprawling Bagram Airbase, about 70km north of Kabul, sent a plume of smoke rising into the sky and the compound was placed on red alert.

Nato said that an American and a South Korean soldier, as well as a US government contractor, whose nationality was unknown, were killed in the attack and a further 27 people were injured.

Tim Albone, Afghanistan correspondent of The Times, visited the base soon after the attack and spoke to one man who was just 10m away from the bomber when he detonated explosives strapped to his waist. The witness, an Afghan-American, said that 14 people were killed, the majority 17- and 18-year-olds who worked at the base as translators.

Another witness, Mashuk Ghanizad, said: “There were bodies everywhere, some were missing faces and others limbs. I will never be able to get this sight out of my mind.”

The Taleban immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. “We wanted to target ...Cheney,” Mullah Hayat Khan, a spokesman for the rebel group, told Reuters by phone from an undisclosed location.

Mr Cheney had spent the night at Bagram after heavy snow forced him to delay a planned meeting with Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, yesterday.

American military officials said the explosion was not a threat to the Vice-President, whose visit was surrounded by tight security and was in his room about a mile away at the time. Mr Cheney left the base for the talks in Kabul about 90 minutes after the blast.

Speaking to journalists from a high-tech trailer inside the body of a military plane, Mr Cheney, wearing a suit and cowboy boots, said that it was “never an option” to cancel the meeting with Mr Karzai.

Mr Cheney pledged America’s continued support in reconstruction and building Afghan security forces and defeat the Taleban. President Karzai in return promised to maintain efforts to stop the farming of opium, of which Afghanistan is the world’s top producer.

Mr Cheney said he was not aware that the Taleban had claimed the attack. “They clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government. Striking at Bagram with a suicide bomber, I suppose, is one way to do that,” he said.

The attack comes the day after Des Browne, the British Defence Secretary, announced that 1,400 more troops would be sent to Afghanistan with heavy armour, rockets and additional ground-attack aircraft. The reinforcements are to support the British force already in Helmand province, in the south. Britain has deployed about 5,600 service personnel to Afghanistan, with around 4,300 in the south and 1,300 in Kabul.

Washington has warned that al-Qaeda and its Taleban allies were regrouping in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan. The Taleban, boosted with money from opium crops and poppy farmers joining the ranks after losing their livelihoods to the eradication campaign, have vowed a major offensive in spring.

During talks with the Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan President, yesterday, Mr Cheney urged him to do more to prevent the Taleban using the country as a safe haven to train fighters and suicide bombers. Intelligence from the CIA was recently reported to have shown several locations where new al-Qaeda camps have been set up in the province of Waziristan on the Pakistani border.

During his tour, Mr Cheney visited Japan and Australia where he sought to reassure the White House's close allies of the strength of America's commitment to the region's security.

Speaking in Sydney, Mr Cheney expressed concern over China’s growing military might after its recent testing of anti-satellite weapons, a claim which China today rejected, insisting that it is a force global stability.

Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, arrived in Kabul today on her first visit to Afghanistan, where she will be meeting key figures in the Afghan Government and Nato forces.

Earlier, during a visit to Pakistan, Mrs Beckett said that Britain would not enter into a dialogue with the Taleban commanders. But she added that talks with Taleban sympathisers who were no longer active might be a possibility in the future.

“That could be a different matter, but I certainly don’t envisage some form or process of dialogue at present,” Mrs Beckett said.

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