An Afghan soldier was killed and three were wounded when a missile was fired at their car on the outskirts of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar Sunday, police and witnesses said. The attack came on the first anniversary of the inauguration of President Hamid Karzai as Afghan leader, after a U.S.-led military coalition toppled the fundamentalist Taliban government. Kandahar was the Taliban's former stronghold.

Qatar's Jazeera satellite television earlier reported that a car bomb had exploded in Kandahar, but officials said a missile had struck the car.

"It was a rocket that was fired as the car was getting out of the city," a police official told reporters at the scene, as smoke rose from the wreckage of the four-wheel drive vehicle.

Officials said one of the soldiers lost his leg in the blast.

"The explosion sounded massive," shopkeeper Abdul Hadi told Reuters.

Police said the four-men were heading out of the city for routine training being offered by the U.S. military, as part of their efforts to support the formation of a national army for the troubled country.

Afghanistan's neighbors are meeting in the capital Kabul Sunday to sign a non-aggression pact to mark the anniversary of Karzai coming to power.

Seven German servicemen with the 22-nation International Security Assistance Force were killed Saturday in Kabul and two Afghan girls were missing after a helicopter crashed into a house.

Also Saturday, an American soldier died of gunshot wounds after suspected al Qaeda militants fired on a patrol in the east of the country, the U.S. military said.

Residents reported three small explosions Saturday night in the eastern city of Jalalabad, but there were no reports of injuries.

PHOTO CAPTION

U.S. soldiers keep a minute of silence for a U.S. soldier who was killed on Dec. 20th in Afghanistan Saturday Dec. 21, 2002 at the U.S. base in Kandahar. One U.S. soldier was killed in a firefight Saturday while another was injured by rocket fire in a separate incident. The slain soldier was shot while on a nighttime operation in the eastern province of Paktika, near the border of Pakistan. An army statement from Fort Bragg, N.C. identified him as an 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper. He was the first U.S. soldier killed in combat in Afghanistan since August. Also Saturday, a German military helicopter crashed near the Kabul airport, killing at least six peacekeepers aboard and two children on the ground, officials said.(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)