Suicide bomber leaves 13 dead in Afghanistan

A suicide bomber targeting US forces outside a busy market in eastern Afghanistan killed 13 people on Monday, including 10 schoolchildren who were walking nearby and two international service members, officials said.

General Zelmia Oryakhail, provincial police chief of Paktia province, said the bomber was on a motorcycle and detonated his explosives at midday outside the market in Chamkani district as a US patrol passed. He said a school had just let pupils out for lunch.

The US military coalition in Afghanistan confirmed that two of its service members died in the explosion. It did not confirm their nationalities.

Ten schoolchildren and one Afghan police officer were killed, the Afghan interior ministry said. It did not release the ages of the children.

Schoolchildren killed

Fifteen other children were wounded in the attack near the school, the latest militant strike to cause civilian casualties in the 12-year war against the US-backed government.

In recent weeks, Taliban insurgents have unleashed a wave of suicide bombers on government targets and international agencies in the country, and militants have been attacking police checkpoints in several provinces in a major test for the security forces of President Hamid Karzai's government.

The insurgents also littered the country's roads with homemade landmines and bombs that often kill civilians.

Also on Monday, a landmine killed seven Afghan civilians in the eastern province of Laghman. A statement from the provincial government said a group of four women and two children had gone with a male driver into the hills to collect firewood. Their vehicle hit the mine on their way back, killing all those inside.

The Afghan army and police are fighting the insurgency this year with little or no help from international forces that have been in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion to topple the Taliban for sheltering al-Qaida's terrorist leadership after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on US soil.

As the withdrawal of most international forces looms, there are tentative parallel efforts to encourage negotiations.

The Taliban confirmed on Monday that it sent a delegation to Iran for three days of talks, signaling that Teheran could be seeking the role of regional mediator in negotiations to end its neighbor's war.

AP-AFP

(China Daily 06/04/2013 page11)