Taliban denies role in Afghan blast
Seven die in new attack on military convoy as Kandahar bomb victims are buried.
Dog fighting
“This suicide attack was the work of the Taliban, the enemies of Afghanistan,” he said.
Among the victims was Abdul Hakim Jan, the commander of a local militia that was opposed to the Taliban.
“The [dog fighting] match was going on and all of a sudden the explosion went off,” witness Abdul Rahman, whose brother was killed, said.
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, condemned the attack from Qatar, where he was on an official trip, accusing the “enemies of Afghanistan who cannot tolerate the happiness of our people”.
“Such acts are against the values of Islam,” he said in a statement.
The Taliban first surfaced in Kandahar province in the early 1990s.
While the Taliban was in government, dog fighting was considered unIslamic and severely punished. It has become immensely popular since the Taliban was driven out of Kabul.