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Bomb attack kills 13 in crowded Afghan market
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Bomb attack kills 13 in crowded Afghan market
AFP - Thursday, April 1
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KABUL (AFP) - – A bomb attack in a crowded market in southern Afghanistan killed 13 people and wounded dozens more on Wednesday in an area at the forefront of the US-led war against the Taliban.
Afghan officials said the attack took place in a village near Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province, as farmers were receiving seeds being handed out to persuade Afghans to abandon the poppy crops that produce heroin.
A NATO official said at least 13 people were killed and dozens more wounded.
The bomb was probably a Taliban-style crudely-made improvised explosive device, said the official with NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
"We don't know the exact cause, but it was likely to be an IED," he told AFP on condition of anonymity.
ISAF helicopters evacuated 40 people to nearby hospitals, he said, adding 32 were in serious condition.
Afghanistan's interior ministry said the bomb was attached to a bicycle and detonated by remote control.
Helmand province is a volatile vortex of the insurgency that has been blighting Afghanistan for more than eight years, with Taliban working with drug gangs to keep much of the region out of the writ of the Afghan government.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombing, blaming the "enemies of Afghanistan" -- a euphemism for the Taliban.
"The perpetrators of this explosion are criminals... and they will not escape the punishment of hell or the retaliation of the Afghan people," he said.
Just 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Lashkar Gah, 15,000 US, NATO and Afghan troops have been taking on insurgents for six weeks in the Marjah region, a poppy-producing plain that is the source of much of the world's heroin.
Part of the efforts to drive out the insurgents and drug lords in southern Afghanistan depends on the success of bringing security and enabling farmers to grow crops other than opium poppies.
Distribution of seeds, mainly wheat, is central to that effort.
The United States is leading a troop surge in Afghanistan, where the number of foreign soldiers is to rise from 126,000 to 150,000 by August, when commanders hope to have quelled the Taliban's southern base of Kandahar.
Military planners say operations in Kandahar province, which neighbours Helmand, have already begun and will escalate in coming months as thousands more US and NATO forces deploy.
"Kandahar is what we're looking into now. It is a cornerstone in reversing the momentum for the Taliban," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on a visit to Kabul.
"Kandahar is the very heart of the insurgency. The next operations are there," the top US military commander stressed.
Mullen spoke a day after touring the Marjah region, where a major offensive first launched in February is the first major test of the new counter-insurgency strategy.
On Tuesday, he met local leaders from Marjah who complained to him about a lack of security and a failure to deliver on promises of civil services six weeks after the campaign was launched.
At talks among G8 foreign ministers in Canada, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced cautious optimism about Afghanistan's prospects for peace, saying progress on military and civilian fronts needed to be sustained.
"On the optimism side, I believe that we are employing a strategy that is working," she said.
But she warned "there has to be a political element that will lead to a resolution of the conflict."
This included "taking soldiers, Taliban fighters off the battlefield, and also looking for those political leaders who are willing to renounce violence and Al-Qaeda, follow the constitution of Afghanistan, and re-enter society."
The Afghan government is organising a traditional peace conference, or "jirga" in Kabul on May 2, as part of efforts to find a negotiated solution to the conflict.
Organisers say the Taliban will be welcome to attend as private individuals.
Mullen described the jirga as a major event on the road to peace, along with the Kandahar campaign, an international conference due to be held in Kabul in the middle of the year and parliamentary elections in September.
"Our goal is to draw down the military forces," he said, adding that conditions were not yet "very realistic".
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