Scores killed in Afghan blast
17/02/2008| IslamWeb
Reporting from Kabul, Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith said that about 80 people may have died in the blast that went off at a popular picnic spot on Sunday.
The leader of a local tribe was said to be among the many victims.
Assadullah Khalid, Kandahar's provincial governor, said the blast was triggered by a suicide bomber.
"Sixty of the martyrs were brought to hospitals and 20 more dead bodies were taken from the site. We think 80 people were killed in this suicide attack," he told reporters.
Khalid blamed Taliban for the attack.
"This suicide attack was the work of the Taliban, the enemies of Afghanistan," he said.
The leader of the local tribe killed in the blast was said to be Abdul Hakim Jan. He led a tribal militia that was fiercely opposed to the Taliban.
An interior ministry spokesman said: "All the police are there and they are evacuating the injured and the dead."
Witnesses said the blast hit at an outdoor dog fighting competition.
The explosion went off as spectators were watching dogs fight, the witnesses said.
"The match was going on and all of a sudden the explosion went off," witness Abdul Rahman, whose brother was killed, said.
Resurgent Taliban
The deadliest such attack killed about 80 people in the northern province of Baghlan in November last year.
The Taliban first surfaced in Kandahar province in the early 1990s.
Kandahar city had seen a wave of suicide blasts and other attacks but these tailed off last year.
The last significant attack in the city was in December when a suicide attacker blew up a bomb-filled car near an Afghan army convoy in Kandahar, killing a civilian.
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Afghanistan map
Al-Jazeera