200 Taliban Fighters Surrounded

Smoke billows following a suicide attack in Khost province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan on Sunday, April 22, 2007. A suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday in an eastern Afghan city, killing six civilians and wounding 40 others, officials said, while a blast in a nearby market killed a shopkeeper. (AP Photo/Nashanuddin Khan) (Nashanuddin Khan - AP)

In southern Zabul province, a police patrol was struck by a roadside bomb, killing two policemen and wounding five others, said district chief Wazir Mohammad Khan.

Intelligence officers, meanwhile, discovered a large car bomb in a battered old taxi parked in a crowded civilian area in Kabul where NATO and U.S. convoys often drive past.

Authorities found a tank of gasoline, three gallons of explosive chemicals, three grenades and a mortar inside the car, an official said on condition of anonymity because of agency policy. The bomb was safely removed, the official said.

There have been at least three suicide bomb attacks in Kabul this year, and more than 40 nationwide, mostly in the south and east, a threefold increase on the same period in 2006.

In Tokyo, Japan's Cabinet approved a six-month extension of the country's naval mission in support of U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, the government said Tuesday.

Japan's navy has provided fuel for coalition warships in the Indian Ocean since November 2001 under a special law, which has been extended three times.

"This forms a crucial component of Japan's contribution to the fight against terrorism," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki.

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Associated Press Writer Amir Shah contributed to this report from Kabul.