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A South Korean solider stationed in an engineering unit in Afghanistan was killed in a bomb attack on Tuesday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JSC) said.

The JCS identified him as 27-year-old Army Sgt. Yoon Jang-ho, who was on duty around a gate of a military base in Bagram, about 60 kilometers north of Kabul, when a suicide bomber attacked. The bomber was believed to have targeted U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who had spent the night at the base, the JCS said.

Yoon, a graduate of Indiana University in the United States, has been serving at the base since last September on a translation mission.

Yoon is the first South Korean solider to be killed in a terrorist attack in Afghanistan, an incident that raises the public concern over the safety of the country's troops abroad.

The JCS formed an emergency team to handle the incident and put all the country's military units in foreign nations on high alert against a similar case.

Defense officials here said there are no reports of other South Korean victims from the attack, adding that it is unlikely that the attack was aimed at South Korean soldiers.

The Defense Ministry said it will release its formal position on the incident and provide further details later in the day.

The U.S.-led coalition also confirmed the incident.

"This morning's suicide attack on an entry gate here has killed four people including two coalition force personnel and the suicide bomber," it said in a statement.

However, up to 20 other U.S.-led coalition soldiers may have been killed in the terrorist attack, according to other reports which have yet to be confirmed.

About 60 medics of the Dongui Medical Unit and 150 engineers of the Dasan Engineering Unit have been operating in Afghanistan since 2002 to help with reconstruction in the war-torn country.

Seoul has also deployed 2,300 troops to Iraq, the third-largest force in the coalition in Iraq after the United States and Britain.

In addition, Seoul is also set to dispatch a battalion of 350 peacekeeping soldiers to Lebanon.

Seoul, Feb. 27 (Yonhap News)