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Bomber kills 35 Afghan police

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KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A suicide bomber walked on to a bus carrying officers to a police academy and detonated himself in Kabul, killing at least 35 police officers, police say.

A police guard who witnessed the explosion said the bus was loaded and about to depart on a regularly scheduled trip to the police academy when the blast happened Sunday.

Ali Shah Paktiawal, a Kabul police official, said the death toll was at least 35.

The explosion happened near the office of Kabul's police chief.

The explosion was heard throughout central Kabul at about 8:10 a.m. local time (0340 GMT), The Associated Press reported.

The roof of the bus was blown off and officers were pulling a number of bodies from the wreckage, an AP reporter at the scene said.

Police and other Afghan security officials are commonly targeted by insurgents because they are seen as tools of the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

The report of the blast in Kabul came on the same day that a coalition soldier was killed in Afghanistan's south, the U.S. military said.

The coalition soldier was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade struck a vehicle during a combat operation in the Uruzgan Province in southern Afghanistan Sunday, according to the U.S. military news release.

The nationality of the soldier, who was part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force was not revealed.

The military said three Afghan National Army soldiers were injured in the attack.

Journalist Tom Coghlan in Kabul contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

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