Afghan suicide bomber kills anti-terror chief

Counter terrorism police chief, traffic chief and several other police officers killed in suicide attack in Kunduz.

Kunduz
Almost 18 people, mostly civilians, were wounded in a suicide attack in the northeast Afghan city of Kunduz [AFP]

A suicide bomber has killed several Afghan officials and civilians in a crowded area of the northeast city of Kunduz, provincial authorities said.

Officials among the victims included “the city’s counter terrorism police chief and head of traffic police chief”, the Kunduz provincial governor’s spokesman Enayatullah Khaleeq told AFP news agency on Saturday.

Kunduz police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussani confirmed the casualties and the attack.

Shortly after 12:30GMT a man driving a motorbike detonated a large bomb at a busy roundabout in the north city of
Kunduz near a group of police officers, provincial police chief spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini said.

“As a result of a suicide attack 10 policemen were killed,” said Hussaini.

Four civilians and five other police officers were wounded in the bombing, he said.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Similar previous incidents have in the past been carried out by Taliban insurgents who are leading an 11-year war against the US-backed government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Earlier in the day a suicide attacker riding a bicycle killed two civilians in southeastern Afghanistan’s Ghazni province.

On Friday, a suicide bomber in a car attacked a NATO convoy in Afghanistan’s strategic Kapisa province on Friday, killing at least five civilians and wounding 15, officials said.

Source: News Agencies