(Updates with British report, government official and driver killed, details)

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL, July 18 (Reuters) - A suicide bomber hit a Turkish diplomatic convoy on the outskirts of the Afghan capital on Wednesday, wounding one Afghan civilian, police said, and shots were fired at one of the vehicles, wounding a Turkish guard.

Hours after the attack, two suicide bombers dressed as Afghan army soldiers attacked the main police station in the southeastern town of Khost and killed three policemen.

"Two suicide bombers dressed as soldiers tried to get into the police compound, but they were identified by police at the first checkpoint," an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

"Two policemen came forward to stop them. One of the bombers detonated himself and the second one was shot dead by police before he had a chance to set off his explosives."

Afghanistan is going through its bloodiest phase of violence since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001.

There are also signs the Taliban are growing stronger, a detailed study by Britain's parliament found.

"The Ministry of Defence asserts that the Taliban insurgency does not pose a strategic threat to Afghanistan (but) violence seems to be increasing and spreading to the previously more peaceful provinces in the north and west ... and the capital," the House of Commons Defence Committee said in a report.

A Kabul-based Western security analyst said the Taliban were gaining new recruits from unemployed youth in the provinces of Wardak and Loghar, just south of Kabul, resulting in a sharp deterioration in security there in the last month.

"I was in Wardak last week. The people there say the Taliban are using the young generation who are jobless and have nothing to do -- they are giving them money or drugs," he said.

Many Afghans are frustrated at the slow pace of development and the inability of the government and its Western backers to bring security to Afghanistan more than five years after the Taliban were ousted from power.

NEW TACTICS

Also on Wednesday, six Afghan police were killed in the southern province of Zabul, and a Filipino road engineer and Afghan guard died in two separate ambushes in the southeastern province of Paktia, provincial officials said.

A government official and his driver were also shot dead by a man on a motorbike in Loghar province, his ministry said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for all the attacks.

After the blast in Kabul, shots were fired from two directions at the damaged armoured vehicle, wounding one Turkish guard, a Turkish embassy official said, suggesting an ambush.

"It is first time this kind of tactic was used," the security analyst said. "They are always trying to find new tactics."

The convoy was travelling to the province of Wardak, southwest of Kabul, where Turkish troops lead a team aiming to bring both security and development to outlying regions.

Inspired by insurgents in Iraq, the Taliban increasingly rely on roadside and suicide bombs as part of their campaign to overthrow the government and drive out foreign troops.

The Kabul attack came hours after three rockets exploded in a field inside the city, police said. There were no casualties or damage from the rockets. (Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Jon Hemming)

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