Bomb attack attributed to Taliban militants

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A bomb strapped to a bicycle killed 13 people Tuesday in this southern Afghan city, most of them children who halted a soccer game and rushed to the site after an initial explosion.

The treacherous double blast, blamed on Taliban militants, may have been intended to lure U.S. troops or hit the provincial governor. But it was innocents who died -- another bloody reminder of the violence sweeping Afghanistan two years after the Taliban's fall.

The death toll put a brutal end to celebrations of a new constitution feted as a bulwark against terrorism, and highlighted the task facing American forces gearing up for a new offensive in time for summer elections.

Two explosions

Curiosity got the better of the children after the first blast tossed bicycles parked on the roadside. The second bomb, a few minutes later at the same spot, was devastating.

Wrecked bikes, blood and shattered glass from a passing truck lay strewn across the road, which was quickly sealed off by shouting Afghan and U.S. soldiers.

The city's deputy police chief, Salim Khan, said the truck driver and a male passer-by were also killed by the second bomb, which he said was attached to one of the bicycles.

"I was playing soccer when I heard the first bomb, and a lot of us rushed to see what happened. Then the second one went off," said Saami Khan, 15, lying in a hospital bed, his face gashed and his chest heavily bandaged where he was cut by shrapnel.

Gul Mohammed, a shopkeeper wounded in the chest and left leg, said he too crossed the street for a closer look. "The next thing I knew I was in the hospital."

Police said eight children, ages 7 to 15, died at the scene, and three more died later of their wounds. Critical cases were rushed to a U.S. military base at Kandahar Air Field for treatment.

Khan suggested the bombs were aimed at guards outside an Afghan military base 100 yards away.

But government officials said U.S. troops, who regularly patrol the street, or Kandahar Gov. Yusuf Pashtun, whose motorcade was expected to pass that way, were more likely targets.

"They don't care so much about Afghan troops," Deputy Interior Minister Hilalludin Hillal told The Associated Press.

Khan put the number of wounded at 23, although a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai put the total at more than 50.

Officials said two men were arrested, one of them caught running from the scene.

Hillal identified the suspect who tried to flee as Abdullah, who, like many Afghans uses one name, and the second detainee as Mullah Malik.

Khan, whose men were interrogating at least one of the suspects, made clear he suspected Taliban or al-Qaida in the attack.

"The investigation is only just beginning," he said. "But we all know the enemies of Afghanistan."

Karzai interrupted meetings with some of the delegates who ratified the new constitution on Sunday to describe the attack as a display of "cruelty and barbarism."

"Terrorists must know, however, that their acts will only further strengthen our resolve to step up our fight against terrorism until the menace is completely eliminated from our land," he said.

The U.S.-led military coalition also condemned the killing.

"It reminds us that there are still elements of the former brutal and repressive regime committed to reversing the successes of the Afghan people," it said in a statement.

Southern and eastern Afghanistan have been riddled by shootings, kidnappings and bomb attacks against civilians as well as soldiers. The Taliban has taken responsibility for many of them.

The violence threatens the timetable for national elections scheduled for mid-2004, and has all but halted reconstruction in a large area along the Pakistani border.

There have been several attacks in Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold that is now the focus of a U.S. plan to deploy hundreds of troops and reconstruction workers across the south and east in the run-up to the vote.

On Monday night, gunmen attacked the office of the United Nations refugee agency in Kandahar, throwing a grenade and firing shots, but causing no injuries.

A bomb ripped through a bustling bazaar in the city a month ago, wounding 20 Afghans. Three days earlier, on Dec. 3, two U.S. soldiers were wounded when a suspected Taliban member threw a grenade at their vehicle, parked in a Kandahar square.

The loya jirga, or grand council, ratified a constitution in Kabul that is supposed to underpin a new state strong enough to end a quarter-century of fighting. But the three-week convention was marred by an ugly ethnic split that has also complicated U.N. efforts to disarm feuding regional warlords.

In the latest factional fighting, police said a senior commander in Zabul province, northeast of Kandahar, was shot and killed Monday by security forces loyal to the governor.

The United States is training a new Afghan National Army to curb the warlords. But only about 7,000 soldiers have been deployed.

The 11,000-member U.S. military force depends heavily on local militias as it pursues Taliban and al-Qaida guerrillas.

A planned expansion of a NATO-led peacekeeping force now confined to Kabul is also expected to bolster security. In a first step on Tuesday, Germany took command of a peace-building mission in northern Afghanistan previously run by the United States.