KABUL (Reuters/AFP) A suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle outside a former vice-presidents home in the heavily secured main diplomatic and government residential neighbourhood of the Afghan capital, killing eight people and wounding dozens. The wreckage of the bombers car was in flames outside the gate to the Heetal Hotel, a small hotel used by foreigners in the Wazir Akbar Khan district, sending thick black smoke into the sky. The home of former vice-president Ahmad Zia Masoud, brother of late anti-Soviet guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Masoud, was heavily damaged. A police source said the former vice president appeared to be the intended target. A Reuters photographer at the scene saw Zia Masoud being escorted away from his house unharmed, surrounded by the flaming wreckage of the car. The house next to Zias, a guest house run by an Indian company, was also badly damaged. The information I have is that eight people were killed. Forty people are wounded. Thats the final (toll), Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. The blast set off a fire, partially gutting villas and shattering windows in the heavily fortified neighbourhood, which is home to many foreign embassies and aid groups as well as Afghan government officials. All the doors of the taxi were blown open by the force of the blast and the car turned full circle because the force of the blast was so big, said witness Nanghirlay, 25, who was travelling two blocks away when the bomber struck. The explosion shattered windows at the Heetal Hotel and Masouds home, where people carried out a dead bodyguard in a blanket as a woman with blood smeared across her face staggered to safety, AFP reporters said. A foreigner was also killed, one government official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to release the information. He did not disclose the nationality. Harjeet Singh, general manager of IT company IO Global Services, told AFP that 40 Indians were staying in the guesthouse, including 20 from his company. Five were wounded, including two IT workers, a cleaner, a cook and a guard, who were all Indians, he told AFP at the bomb site. The government said a suicide bomber on a motorbike killed two Afghan soldiers and wounded two others in the Sangin district of Helmand province, the deadliest battlefield in the eight-year war against the Taliban. A spokesman for the NATO-run International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed that an incident was under investigation. Isaf said an improvised-explosive device killed a US soldier serving in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday. The soldier was killed by an improvised-explosive device, the military said providing no further details.