KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai directly accused Pakistan's government Tuesday of supporting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, hours after a suicide attacker exploded himself in an Afghan governor's compound, killing eight.

The Taliban have increasingly targeted government officials. Since September, they have killed one provincial governor, narrowly missed another, and killed several district-level police, intelligence and administrative chiefs.

The attacks are aimed at undermining the government of Karzai, who on Tuesday employed some of his toughest rhetoric yet against Pakistan, Afghanistan's eastern neighbour and a U.S. ally.

"The problem is not Taliban," Karzai told foreign journalists during a trip to Kandahar, the Taliban's former stronghold. "We don't see it that way. The problem is with Pakistan.''

He said the Taliban took power with support from Pakistan, calling it "more than a boss.''

"The state of Pakistan was supporting the Taliban, so we presume if there is still any Taliban, that they are being supported by a state element.''

A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, claimed responsibility for Tuesday's suicide attack.

The bomb went off in a parking lot and Helmand Gov. Mohammed Daud escaped injury, although a district chief was killed. It was the second deadly attack near Daud's office in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, in less than three months. Eight other people were wounded.

Tuesday's suicide bomber -- identified by the Taliban spokesman as an Afghan named Mullah Famiullah -- approached Daud's compound on foot. His bomb went off as the police guards tried to search him, officials said.

The explosion killed six guards, Washer district chief Abdul Sattar Khan and an unidentified civilian.

Helmand is a centre of Afghanistan's vast opium and heroin industry as well as Taliban resistance, and has seen some of the heaviest fighting this year. The bombing came one day after the province's deputy governor, who is the brother of Helmand's former governor, was fired. The two are seen by many as linked to the drug trade.

A British soldier was killed in a clash with insurgents in the province Tuesday.

Karzai was in neighbouring Kandahar province, where he travelled with Western diplomats -- including U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann -- and the chief of NATO forces in Afghanistan to discuss how to prevent civilian casualties in military operations.

A series of civilian deaths during NATO fighting with the Taliban and in the chaotic aftermath of suicide attacks has fuelled Afghan anger.

"We are rightly angered by it and worried by it,'' Karzai said. "NATO is also worried by it, and is working with us to reduce such casualties.''

In the latest civilian death, U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces killed a 13-year-old girl and wounded an eight-year-old girl in a raid in eastern Khost province that also claimed the lives of four suspected rebels who had opened fire when challenged to surrender.