The victims were part of a civil-military Provincial Reconstruction Team helping to rebuild war-shattered communities in Baghlan province, governor Juma Khan Hamdard told AFP.

"This morning, an explosion struck an International Security Assistance Force vehicle from Baghlan provincial reconstruction team. Two Dutch soldiers were injured," the governor said.

NATO spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Karen Tissot van Patot was unable to confirm the nationality of the two soldiers. She told AFP in Kabul that two soldiers suffered minor injuries.

There are 8,300 soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, providing security in the capital Kabul and in northern and northwestern provinces.

Neither Patot nor the governor could say who might have been behind the attack.

Pul-i-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province, has seen little violence by remnants of the Taliban regime, whose activities have been focused on southern and southeastern Afghanistan.

But the province has been the scene of violent rivalry between local warlords.

Local commanders with the Northern Alliance joined forces with the US military to overthrow the ultra-Islamic Taliban regime in 2001 and despite a UN-backed disarmament drive many of them retain their private militias.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.