A SUICIDE car b**** exploded outside the Indian Embassy in central Kabul today, killing 40 people and wounding 141 in the deadliest attack of the year in the Afghanistan capital.

The massive b**** exploded near a row of metal turnstiles outside the embassy, where dozens of Afghan men line up every morning to apply for visas.

Rubble

The embassy is located on a busy, tree-lined street near Afghanistans Interior Ministry in the city centre.

Several nearby shops were damaged or destroyed in the blast, and smouldering ruins and wounded Afghans covered the street. The explosion rattled much of the Afghan capital.

Pain ... injured child calls out

"Several shopkeepers have died. I have seen shopkeepers under the rubble, said Ghulam Dastagir, a shopkeeper wounded in the blast.

Abdullah Fahim, the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, said the explosion killed at least 28 people and wounded 141. The ministry collected information from the scene and several Kabul hospitals.

The explosion was the deadliest attack in Kabul this year and the worst since a suicide b****er attacked an army bus last September killing 30 people.

Afghanistans Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta visited the embassy shortly after the attack, ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmed Baheen said.

India and Afghanistan have a deep relationship between each other. Such attacks of the enemy will not harm our relations, Spanta told the embassy staff, according to Baheen.

The Indian ambassador and his deputy were not inside the embassy at the time of the blast, Baheen said.

Militants have frequently attacked Indian offices and projects around Afghanistan since launching an insurgency after the ouster of the Taliban at the end of the 2001.

Many Taliban militants have roots in Pakistan, which has long had a troubled relationship with India.