The contractors were working on a foreign-funded road building project in Herat province.

Police say Taliban militants armed with rocket propelled guns and automatic weapons attacked the camp.

A separate assault saw five people, including women and children, killed by a roadside bomb in Helmand province.

Correspondents say road building projects have been attacked in the past and violent incidents of this kind have increased as Nato prepares to withdraw combat troops in 2014.

The workers killed in the latest attack were building a 52km (32 mile) stretch of road linking two provinces.

Their camp was attacked as they slept in the early hours of Saturday, provincial police spokesman Abdul Rauf Ahmadi told AFP.

No group has claimed responsibility for the assault.

Five members of the same family were killed in the Marjah district of southern Helmand province when their van struck a roadside bomb, according to the Associated Press news agency.

By the end of 2014, all foreign combat troops are due to have left Afghanistan to be replaced – if approved by the Afghan government – by a smaller force that will only train and advise.

Provincial spokesmen in Nangarhar, Kabul,Khost, Laghman and Nuristan said that all the floods struck early Saturday. Flash floods are common in those provinces and all are fed by rivers that eventually intersect in Nangarhar.

In Kabul’s Surobi district, police chief Shaghasi Ahmadi said 34 people were killed in a remote and mountainous area. He said 22 of the bodies from Surobi were later found downstream in Laghman.

Surobi has a number of rivers running through it. It is also rife with Taliban activity.

Ahmadi said food, tents and other emergency supplies were being sent to the district from the capital.

Downstream in the adjacent province of Nangarhar, a government statement said 17 people were killed by the floods.

President Hamid Karzai’s office said another seven died in Khost and Nuristan.

Rain quickly can weaken the structures of the mud-walled homes that dot the countryside in Afghanistan, causing the buildings to collapse during heavy downpours. In neighboring Pakistan on Saturday, the same storm system brought heavy rain that caused more than 100 homes to collapse and caved in a factory wall, killing at least 14 people.

A spokesman for the Taliban militant group immediately denied any responsibility for the attack, which rocked the city and left a mosque, private houses, tailors and other nearby shops in ruins.

“A car containing explosives hit a barrier near the consulate and detonated,” Ahmadzia Abdulzai, spokesman for Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital, told AFP. “There were three suicide bombers in the car.”

Nangarhar police chief Sharif Amin confirmed that the consulate was the intended target of the blast, which created a large crater in the road as survivors wearing blood-stained clothing ran for cover.

The interior ministry condemned the attack as “heinous” and said nine people had died, with 21 other civilians wounded. The death toll included at least one child.

An AFP photographer reported that ambulances rushed to the scene and took the injured to hospital as security forces cordoned off the area, where several large buildings were badly damaged.

Syed Akbaruddin, a spokesman for the Indian foreign ministry in New Delhi, said on his Twitter account that all officials were safe after the attack — the first major strike in Afghanistan during the holy month of Ramadan that started on July 10.

India, which has spent more than two billion dollars of aid in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime fell in 2001, has been previously targeted in the war-torn country.

In 2008, a car bomb attack on the Indian embassy killed more than 60 people and, in 2010, suicide attacks on two guesthouses killed at least 16 people including seven Indians.

“Our fighters have not carried out any attack in Jalalabad,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP. “We do not claim the responsibility for this attack.”

Jalalabad is situated on the key route from the Pakistani border region — where many militants are based — to Kabul, and it has been the location of repeated attacks in recent years.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) compound in the city was hit on May 29, with the Taliban rebels also denying any involvement.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation on Wednesday singled out Afghanistan’s Habiba Sarabi, a 57-year-old doctor, for her “bold exercise of leadership to build up a functioning provincial government against great odds.”

Sarabi, currently the only Afghan woman in such a role, also devoted her energy to helping Afghans in refugee camps, providing medical care and supervising literacy courses secretly in a Taliban-ruled state in the late 1990s.

“I’m not a warlord. I’m just a modern woman,” said Sarabi, the governor of Bamyan province since 2005, who has pushed for education and empowerment of women in a society scarred by widespread discrimination against women and minorities.

The Foundation also recognized Lahpai Seng Raw from Myanmar, for her “quietly inspiring and inclusive leadership in the midst of deep ethnic divides and prolonged armed conflicts.”

The 64-year-old widow, founder of the largest civil society group in the military-ruled country, did relief work among displaced people besides setting up schools and clinics. She was once detained on suspicion of being in contact with a brother who is with rebel forces in Myanmar.

In addition, the Manila-based foundation honored Ernesto Domingo, a 76-year-old Filipino doctor who saved millions from life-threatening illness by vaccinating babies against hepatitis B and almost eliminating the chance of their getting infected.

Other winners include Indonesia’s independent anti-corruption government body, the Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK), which has a 100-percent rate of conviction of corrupt officials and has recovered $80 million in stolen assets.

Nepal’s Shakti Samuha, a group that combats human trafficking and helped rebuild the lives of thousands of trafficked and abused women, was another winner.

The winners will receive prizes of $50,000 each at a ceremony set for August 31 in Manila.

“The foundation wishes to raise awareness about the Magsaysay Award and specifically, about this year’s five awardees, who are collectively advancing causes to improve lives and transform societies across Asia,” foundation president Carmencita Abella said in a statement.

The awards, named for a popular president of the Philippines who was killed in a plane crash, were established in 1957 by the trustees of the New York-based Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

More than 300 people and groups, including the U.S. Peace Corps and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have been recognized since 1958.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – A suicide bomber attacked an Iraqi army convoy in the northern city of Mosul early on Monday, killing at least 22 soldiers and three passers-by, police said.

The bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives up to a military convoy in the eastern Kokchali district of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, before blowing himself and his car up.

“A suicide bomber was following the convoy and when it stopped in the middle of road, he detonated his vehicle right behind it,” said a policeman at the scene who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A separate attack in western Mosul killed four policemen, police said.

It was not clear who was behind the blasts, but suicide bombings are the hallmark of al Qaeda, which has been regrouping in Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city and capital of the Sunni-dominated Nineveh province.

Insurgent groups such as al Qaeda have found willing recruits among Iraq’s Sunni minority, which resents Shi’ite domination since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The attacks are the latest in a campaign of violence across Iraq that has raised fears of a return to full-blown conflict in a country where Kurds, Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims have yet to find a stable way of sharing power.

Relations between Islam’s two main denominations have been put under further strain from the civil war in Syria, which has drawn in Shi’ite and Sunni fighters from Iraq and beyond to fight against each other.

Nearly 600 people have been killed in militant attacks across Iraq so far this month, according to violence monitoring group Iraq Body Count.

That is still well below the height of bloodletting in 2006-07, when the monthly death toll sometimes exceeded 3,000.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Catherine Evans)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Suicide attackers blew up a car bomb and battled security forces outside Afghanistan’s presidential palaceTuesday after infiltrating one of the most secure areas of the capital. The army said the attackers were killed but knew of no other deaths.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as reporters were gathering for a news event on Afghan youth at whichPresident Hamid Karzai was expected to talk about ongoing efforts to open peace talks with the militant group.

The palace is in a large fortified area of downtown Kabul that also includes the U.S. Embassy and the headquarters for the NATO-led coalition forces. Access is heavily restricted. It houses Karzai’s residence but it was not immediately clear whether the president was in the building at the time and his spokesman did not answer his phone.

Gunfire started around 6:30 a.m. inside a heavily guarded area near the east gate leading to the palace next to the Afghan Ministry of Defense and the former Ariana Hotel, which former U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed is used by the CIA.

Kabul police chief Gen. Mohamad Ayub Salangi said three or four gunmen jumped out of their SUV and opened fire after being stopped by security forces while trying to use fake documents to get through a checkpoint. All gunmen were killed, and one palace security guard was wounded, he said.

A car bomb then exploded as it tried to enter the area. About 20 journalists took cover behind a religious shrine, pulling a schoolboy off the street who had been caught in the open on his way to school.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility, saying in a text message the militants had “brought death to the enemy” with a suicide attack. He later suggested in an emailed statement that all three buildings had been targeted, saying the attack came “near the Ariana Hotel, the important CIA base, and also the presidential palace and Ministry of Defense.”

Smoke could be seen coming from the area of the hotel, but there was no immediate indication any of the buildings were hit in the attack.

Mujahid claimed the attackers had inflicted “heavy casualties,” but Afghanistan’s Kabul division army commander Gen. Kadam Shah Shahim said he knew of no deaths among security forces or civilians.

He said his forces killed all of the attackers after they jumped out of their vehicle and opened fire.

The NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan instituted a camp lockdown during the incident and said in a short statement that its forces had been ready to assist but were not called in by Afghan authorities.

The U.S. Embassy cancelled all consular appointments and advised American citizens in Kabul to stay indoors but had no immediate comment on the incident.

The Taliban have indicated they are willing to open peace talks with the U.S. and the Afghanistan government and just last week opened an office in Qatar for possible negotiations.

But at the same time they have not renounced violence and attacks have continued across Afghanistan.

NATO said a coalition service member also died in a militant attack in the south on Saturday, but did not provide further details.

The violence follows NATO’s formal handover of security in the entirety of Afghanistan to Kabul’s forces — a transition that comes at a time with violence levels matching their worst in nearly 12 years of war.

In northern Afghanistan, Kunduz provincial police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini said Saturday that the Taliban attacked multiple checkpoints at about noon Friday in the provincial capital of the same name, killing one member of the Afghan local police, a community-based force, and wounding two.

The Taliban then moved outside the city where a gun battle with Afghan security forces lasted until about midnight, Hussaini said.

Eighteen Taliban fighters and another local policeman were killed in the battle, and another 11 militants were wounded, he said. Hussaini posted on his Facebook page a picture of 11 bodies lined up inside theprovincial police compound in Kunduz that he said were those of Taliban militants his troops recovered from the scene of the fight.

The Interior Ministry said the battle outside of the city involved Afghan National Police, and that it was conducted independently “without the involvement of any foreigners.”

As Afghan forces have become more involved in security operations they have seen a sharp rise in deaths, while casualties among the U.S.-led military coalition have been reducing as the international forces pull back to let the Afghans take the lead.

According to an Associated Press count, 807 Afghan security force members — including soldiers and police — and 365 civilians have been killed so far this year through the end of May. A total of 63 coalition troops were also killed in that span.

Last year through the end of May, Afghan security forces lost 365 soldiers and police and 338 civilians were killed. Coalition forces lost 177 troops during that time.

A Ministry of Defense statement from the former Soviet republic said Alasania met Friday with his Afghan counterpart, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi.

Afghan official Mohammad Omar Zwark says a suicide attacker drove the truck full of explosives into the entrance of the camp in Helmand province Thursday, causing a huge blast.

The Georgian ministry says all seven killed were members of the same unit and had been in Afghanistanonly since April.

Last month, three Georgian soldiers were killed in an attack at another Helmand base.

Georgia has 1,545 troops serving in Afghanistan.

The U.S.-led military coalition says the service member died Sunday as a result of insurgent fire. It did not provide any other details.

The death brings the number of international force members killed this month in Afghanistan to 20.

May has been the deadliest month this year for international troops in Afghanistan, but casualties are down over previous years as foreign forces pull back and allow Afghan security forces to take the lead before the coalition run by NATO ends its mission next year.

Last May, a total of 44 NATO troops died in Afghanistan.

The coalition also said a car bomb hit a NATO convoy early Monday in the country’s west, but there were no military casualties.

Three Afghan civilians were wounded in the blast that hit the convoy in Farah province, said Deputy Governor Mohammad Rasouli.

Police Chief Abdul Ghani was leaving his driveway in his car outside his home in Farah province when the two raced up and opened fire.
Provincial spokesman Abdul Rahman Zhawandai said that Ghani was rushed to hospital after the attack Friday night but died of his wounds.

Ghani had recently launched a crackdown against insurgents in his district of Khaki Safad that resulted in the killing and capture of several Taliban leaders, Zhawandai said.

“Because he was an active commander in this district, he was a target of the Taliban,” he said. In the same province Saturday morning, four Afghan army soldiers died in Bakwa district when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Afghan security forces and government officials are targeted by the Taliban to weaken the government of President Hamid Karzai ahead of the withdrawal of most international troops by the end of 2014.