40 civilians killed in Afghan blast
7 Jun 2012 2:37 AM GMT
Up to 40 civilians were killed in a bloody day across Afghanistan on Wednesday as a twin suicide bombing laid waste to a crowded makeshift bazaar and a NATO air strike hit a home, Afghan officials said.
Twenty-three people were killed and 50 others were wounded in the suicide attack in a car park crammed with vehicles supplying the largest NATO base in southern Afghanistan, police said.
A suicide bomber on a motorcycle struck first and as a crowd gathered to help the victims a second bomber walked into their midst and set off explosives strapped to his body, Kandahar provincial police chief General Abdul Raziq told AFP. ‘All casualties are civilians - not a single military person,’ he said.
Hours earlier, at least 15 civilians, including women and children, were killed in a NATO air strike on a home in Logar province south of Kabul, police said.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force [ISAF] said ‘multiple insurgents’ were killed in the air strike, which was ordered after troops came under fire.
But deputy provincial police chief Rais Khan Sadeq Abdulrahimzai told AFP: ‘18 civilians, including women and children, are dead,’ adding that seven Taliban insurgents were also killed.
Provincial government spokesman Din Mohammad Darvish said ‘around 15 civilians are dead’ after the attack in the early hours of Wednesday.
An AFP correspondent said he saw at least 15 bodies that had been loaded into five vehicles and driven by villagers to the provincial capital of Pol-i-Alam. He said he saw the bodies of three women and four children, one as young as a year old and the oldest about 10 years old.
Twenty-three people were killed and 50 others were wounded in the suicide attack in a car park crammed with vehicles supplying the largest NATO base in southern Afghanistan, police said.
A suicide bomber on a motorcycle struck first and as a crowd gathered to help the victims a second bomber walked into their midst and set off explosives strapped to his body, Kandahar provincial police chief General Abdul Raziq told AFP. ‘All casualties are civilians - not a single military person,’ he said.
Hours earlier, at least 15 civilians, including women and children, were killed in a NATO air strike on a home in Logar province south of Kabul, police said.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force [ISAF] said ‘multiple insurgents’ were killed in the air strike, which was ordered after troops came under fire.
But deputy provincial police chief Rais Khan Sadeq Abdulrahimzai told AFP: ‘18 civilians, including women and children, are dead,’ adding that seven Taliban insurgents were also killed.
Provincial government spokesman Din Mohammad Darvish said ‘around 15 civilians are dead’ after the attack in the early hours of Wednesday.
An AFP correspondent said he saw at least 15 bodies that had been loaded into five vehicles and driven by villagers to the provincial capital of Pol-i-Alam. He said he saw the bodies of three women and four children, one as young as a year old and the oldest about 10 years old.
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