Suicide attacks on Afghan police claim 14 lives

Kabul: A suicide bomber sneaked into a police dining hall in central Afghanistan at lunchtime on Friday and blew himself up, killing 12, while a border police officer and a civilian were killed in a separate suicide attack in the south, authorities said. Uruzgan provincial government spokesman Abdullah Himmat said investigators are still trying to determine how the suicide bomber passed three checkpoints to enter the crowded hall at about 12:30 pm.

The bomber entered the dining hall and detonated a suicide vest just inside the door, he said. The dining hall was on a base in Tarin Kowt, Uruzgan`s capital, used by police assigned to secure the main highway to neighboring Kandahar. Afghan media reported 10 of the 12 victims were Afghan national police officers. Himmat, however, would only say that the dead were "primarily police." Five other people were wounded in the explosion. This year has seen violence levels comparable to the worst in nearly 12 years of war in Afghanistan. Though the Taliban have recently indicated they would be open to beginning peace talks, they have also said they will not give up their attacks. In the southern province of Kandahar, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a border checkpoint entering Afghanistan from Pakistan, killing at least two people and wounding eight others. Kandahar provincial government spokesman Javeed Faisal said the attacker detonated his explosives at midmorning at the gates of the Spin Boldak crossing into Afghanistan, which is used by thousands of people every day. In addition to the suicide bomber, the blast killed one border police officer and wounded one, and killed one civilian and wounded seven others. Border police say the officer killed was the checkpoint commander, and they assume he was the target. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Such attacks are usually the work of Islamic militants. In another incident today in Uruzgan, Himmat, the government spokesman, said a boy and a girl were killed by a roadside bomb on their way home around midday. PTI