Bombers kill 23 in Afghanistan

by Mohammad Reza Mohammad Reza –

Fri Nov 20, 2009, 11:00 am ET

HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) –

Bomb attacks on Friday killed 23 people in Afghanistan, a deadly start to President Hamid Karzai's second term that underscored spiralling insecurity nine years into the US-led war.

The attacks brought to 35 the number of people killed since Karzai was sworn in for another five years on Thursday, pledging to try to bring peace to the nation and take over security from foreign forces in five years.

A suicide bomber on a motorcycle struck the capital of the southwestern province of Farah, killing 15 people near the governor's home.

A roadside bomb targeted a controversial warlord, who escaped unscathed but killed five of his bodyguards northwest of Kabul, while a similar device, of the type favoured by Taliban insurgents, killed three civilians in the east.

The suicide bomber damaged buildings in Farah in an area where heavy trucks were being loaded, officials said.

"The bomber riding on a motorcycle detonated himself at a main square near my working office in my home," provincial governor Rohul Amin Amin told AFP.

"Fifteen people have been killed," the governor said. Apart from a police officer, all the dead were civilians, Amin added.

About 38 other people were wounded, officials said. More than a dozen were in a "critical condition".

Karzai condemned the "brutal and unforgivable attack on civilians", said a statement from his office.

In the capital Kabul, a roadside bomb ripped through the convoy of Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayaf, a pro-Karzai warlord-turned-lawmaker who survived. Five of his bodyguards were killed, police said.

"A bomb planted on the side of the road was detonated as his (Sayaf's) convoy passed by," district police Chief Abdul Razaq Quraishi told AFP

"Five of his bodyguards were killed," he said.

Sayaf supported Karzai during Afghanistan's fraud-tainted August 20 election and the subsequent withdrawal of his main challenger from a run-off, which has seen many Afghans view the president's second mandate as illegitimate.

Afghan and international rights groups accuse Sayaf and his private militia of atrocities during Afghanistan's civil war, killed tens of thousands of civilians from 1992 until the Taliban took power in 1996.

In the eastern province of Khost, a roadside bomb tore through a civilian car, killing three non-combatants, local police said.

Four attacks have hit Afghanistan since Karzai was inaugurated. Two US soldiers and 10 civilians were killed in two separate bombings on Thursday.

The violence underscores the challenge Karzai faces if he is to make good on his inauguration hope that Afghan troops will soon take the lead on security, allowing the more than 100,000 NATO and US troops to scale back.

"We are determined that within the next five years the Afghan forces are capable of taking the lead in ensuring security and stability," he told an audience that included US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

However US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said it was too soon to set a timeline for troop drawdowns.

"I think I would rather have those on the ground in Afghanistan make the judgment call about when a province or a district was ready to be turned over, rather than specific dates," Gates told reporters.