A suicide attack on an army recruitment centre in North Afghanistan's Kunduz province today killed 37 people and wounded nearly 40 others, local officials said.
It was the third major assault in the area in less than a month.
Dozens were wounded, officials said, and a gunfire was heard in the area after the attack.
Hamdullah Danishi, deputy governor of Kunduz province, said the casualties were all caused by a single suicide bomber.
"The death toll includes new recruits, army soldiers and civilians," he said, adding that several children who earned a living as shoe polishers were also among the dead.
Some of the wounded are in critical condition and the toll may rise.
A statement issued by President Hamid Karzai's palace put the death toll at 33, with 42 wounded, and said four children were among the dead. "Such attacks can never lower the morale of those Afghans who enlist in the security forces," the statement said.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the militant Islamist group.
Violence is spreading fast in the once relatively peaceful north, with Kunduz a focus for insurgents.
The Kunduz police chief was killed by a suicide bomber while out on patrol in the city last week. Last month, a suicide bomber killed at least 30 people in a government office while people were queueing to collect identity cards in the Emam Saheb district of Kunduz.
The previous governor of Kunduz was killed in an attack on a mosque where he was worshipping last October, and in December an assault by at least four suicide bombers on an army recruitment centre near the site of today's attack killed five soldiers and four policemen.
The province has become established as an insurgent base over the past two years, with attacks radiating out into surrounding provinces while Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) offensives have been concentrated in Taliban strongholds in the south and east.
Last year, violence across Afghanistan hit its worst levels since the Taliban were ousted by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, despite the presence of about 150,000 foreign troops.
Kunduz was the last city to fall to US-backed Northern Alliance forces in 2001 and the surge in violence there underscores the complexity of the Afghan conflict in areas where the Taliban are jostling with other international and domestic militant groups as they try to expand their influence.
Reuters