AKIPRESS.COM - A suicide car bomber rammed a NATO military convoy along a major road out of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, early on Monday, killing one Afghan civilian, authorities said, Reuters reported.

Hours later, another suicide bomber killed a woman outside a clinic in a province east of Kabul and a third bomb exploded in a market on the capital's northern outskirts, wounding 22 people including three children, officials said.

The violence came as the Taliban and their militant allies step up attacks ahead of the withdrawal of most foreign troops at the end of the year.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the car bomb attack on the Jalalabad Road, a main thoroughfare with a U.S. military base and a housing compound for U.N. and other international contractors and aid workers.

At least three foreigners were wounded in the blast targeting their armored vehicles, but their identities were not known, police said.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led NATO mission in Afghanistan said a patrol was attacked but there were no fatalities among the international force. The force does not confirm injuries.

The bomber in a Toyota Corolla car drove into the convoy just before 7 a.m., said Farid Afzali, head of Kabul's police investigation department.

"As a result of the blast, one of our countrymen was killed and three foreigners slightly wounded," Afzali said.