At least eight children on their way home from school were among those killed yesterday when a powerful blast ripped through a truck in the Afghan city of Kandahar. Dozens more were injured.
The explosion came just two days after a new constitution was adopted in Kabul that war-weary Afghans hope will set the country on the road to recovery after nearly 25 years of bloodshed.
A reporter at the scene saw the bodies of three young men. Pools of blood, shoes and a turban littered the blast site.
"At first there was a small explosion in which a child was injured," a local witness said. "When people gathered to help the child, the big explosion happened." President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack as an "act of cruelty and barbarism" and said it would only strengthen his resolve to fight terrorism.
A statement from his office said at least eight children were among the dead and 58 people were wounded in the explosion.
Gen Abdul Wasi, spokesman for the corps commander of Kandahar province, said 12 people had died, but state-run Kabul TV later reported the death toll had risen to 16, with 52 people wounded.
Suspicion immediately fell on remnants of the ousted Taliban, linked to much of the violence in Afghanistan in recent months, but a spokesman for the militia denied any involvement.
Doctors at a nearby hospital were treating at least 29 people, 18 of them with serious wounds. They said the majority of the victims were children.
Kandahar Corps commander Khan Mohammad Khan said a man was detained on suspicion of involvement in the explosion.
The method of attack was similar to that used in September 2002, when dozens of people who rushed to help those injured in a blast in central Kabul were killed by a second much larger one.
Later that same day, Mr Karzai had a narrow escape when a man opened fire on his vehicle.
Kandahar is the former bastion of the ousted Taliban, which has declared a jihad on foreign and Afghan soldiers and aid workers. Several attacks have been staged there on aid groups and civilians in recent months.
In early December, at least 18 people were wounded in an explosion in a crowded Kandahar market, an attack blamed by the authorities on the Taliban but denied by the hardline Islamic militia toppled from power by US-led forces in late 2001.
A Taliban official said the militia had nothing to do with the latest atrocity.
But yesterday's tragedy will raise fresh fears that Islamic militants from the Taliban and al-Qaeda network it once sheltered are still capable of undermining stability.
The Taliban has threatened to step up attacks in Afghan cities, and said it carried out a suicide bombing in Kabul a week ago that killed five security officials.
About 12,000 US-led troops are hunting remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda and 5,700 international peacekeepers are based mainly in the capital. - (Reuters)