24 killed in Afghan suicide blast

A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded bazaar in southern Afghanistan yesterday killing 24 people while 40 militants were killed in US-led airstrikes in the south in latest surge of violence.
The blast came as international and Afghan security forces battled militants on several fronts, with the US-led coalition announcing it had killed at least 40 insurgents in an ongoing operation in the volatile south.
An attacker with bombs strapped to his body rammed his three-wheeled motorbike into a police vehicle in the Uruzgan bazaar, causing an explosion that ripped through several shops, officials and a witness said.
Twenty civilians and four policemen were killed in the blast in Deh Rawood, 400km southwest of Kabul, said Uruzgan police chief Juma Gul Hemat.
"In the hospital we have 27 people wounded," he said.
The bomb exploded in the centre of the bazaar which was very crowded at the time, said one shopkeeper who gave his name only as Fazlullah.
"Most of the casualties are shopkeepers and people and children who were selling stuff on the roadside," he said.
"Around 15 shops have been damaged. I saw lots of people killed and injured. I can see human flesh, blood and pieces of metal, wood, clothing scattered around. Everything is bloodied," he told AFP by telephone.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing but similar attacks have been carried out by Taliban militants, who have led an insurgency against the Kabul government since being ousted from power in 2001.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack, blaming the "enemies of Afghanistan" -- a reference to Taliban and other insurgents.
"Those who are sending terrorists and suicide bombers are the ones who can't see a prosperous and free Afghanistan," the president said in a statement.
The Uruzgan blast came less than a week after a suicide bombing at the Indian embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul killed more than 40 people including four Indian nationals, two of them senior diplomats.
The Kabul bombing was the deadliest suicide attack in the capital since the fall of the Taliban.
Nato-led and Afghan soldiers were meanwhile engaged in heavy battles in the northeastern province of Kunar Sunday after an outpost came under attack in the early morning, officials said.
"The fighting started early today and it's still ongoing. We have taken casualties," said Captain Mike Finney, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force.
The US-led coalition says Afghan and coalition security forces have killed at least 40 militants during a two-day battle in southern Afghanistan.
The coalition says militants attacked the combined forces during a security patrol in Helmand province on Saturday from "multiple concealed and fortified positions."
The military says airstrikes have been used and 40 militants have been killed over two days. It also says that 30 "enemy boats" and several small bridges were destroyed on the Helmand River.
Four Afghan soldiers had been wounded, defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP. "Tens of enemies have been killed and wounded but we don't have a figure," he said.
The troops had responded with air strikes, deputy provincial governor of adjoining Nuristan province, Abdul Aleem, told AFP.
"Some homes were destroyed and damaged. There have been casualties among all three sides -- the locals, Taliban and foreign forces," he said.
Four police were meanwhile missing after days of clashes with insurgents in a district of Nuristan on the border with Pakistan, Aleem said.
Insurgents had overrun two police posts in Bargi Matal district, he said. Two of the insurgents were also killed, Aleem said.
The US-led coalition announced separately that one of its soldiers was killed in a bomb attack in the southern province of Helmand on Sunday.
And the Taliban said they had shot dead two Afghan women in the central province of Ghazni because they worked for the police and were prostitutes.
Ghazni officials confirmed the killing but said the women had no links with the government.