Afghan bomb kills 11 children

Sixteen wedding guests, including 11 children, were killed Tuesday when a bus hit a roadside bomb in western Afghanistan, underscoring the heavy toll paid by civilians in a decade of war. Another five people were killed in a suicide car bombing near the police headquarters in southern Helmand province, two months after British troops handed the Afghan government control of the local capital Lashkar Gah. Giving details of the roadside bombing, provincial spokesman Mohayedin Noori said: "At around 1:00 pm (0830 GMT) today a passenger bus returning from a wedding party hit a roadside bomb in Shindand district, killing 16 people." He added that 11 children, four women and one man were among the dead in Herat, once considered a relatively peaceful province bordering Iran but where some districts are now troubled by a significant insurgent presence. Herat police spokesman Noor Khan Neikzad blamed the attack on the Taliban, the leaders of a decade-long insurgency in Afghanistan. "The area in which the incident has happened is restive, the Taliban are active there," he said. "We believe they are responsible for killing the civilians." The Taliban were not immediately reachable for comment. Civilians pay the heaviest toll of the war in Afghanistan, which started in 2001 when the Taliban were ousted from power by a US-led invasion and now sees 140,000 foreign troops based in the country. The United Nations last month said that 1,462 civilians were killed in the first half of this year, up 15 percent in the same period last year. Insurgents were responsible for 80 percent of the killings, it said. The Lashkar Gah bombing happened at a centre contracted to provide food and clothing for Afghan security forces close to the local police headquarters. Mohammad Rasoul, a spokesman for the Afghan army, said three police were killed and three others wounded in the blast in the capital of Helmand. Enayatullah Ghafari, public health director in the province, told AFP that two dead civilians were also brought to local hospitals. Some 25 other people, both police and civilians, were wounded, he added. Lashkar Gah was one of seven areas handed over to Afghan government control by NATO-led forces in July in a first wave of transition which will see all foreign combat forces leave by the end of 2014. There have been a string of attacks in Lashkar Gah since British troops formally handed control of security in the area to the Afghan army on July 20. These included another suicide car bomb attack on police headquarters which killed 13 people on July 31. Herat city, some distance from Tuesday's bus bombing further south in the province, was also transferred from NATO to Afghan government control in July. Elsewhere on Tuesday, police claimed pro-government forces killed 25 Taliban insurgents who attacked a logistics convoy in Ghazni province, central Afghanistan, and burnt three vehicles. The convoy was on its way to supply NATO-led troops, provincial police chief Zarawar Zahid said.