Suicide Car Bomb Kills 21 Afghans

A suicide car bomber killed at least 21 Afghans on Thursday, many of them children, near a mosque in the southern province of Kandahar, according to Afghan and NATO authorities.

The blast in the town of Panjwayi, a Taliban stronghold, came three days after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization took command of the counterinsurgency war in the region and as Canadian troops moved through the area, the NATO-led force in southern Afghanistan confirmed.

Most of the casualties were children 12 to 15 years old who were leaving the mosque, where they had been studying the Koran, the Muslim holy book, said Yousuf Stanizai, spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry. The explosion injured 13 people and caused two shops to burn to the ground, he added.

“We believe local Afghans were the target because the car exploded in the most crowded area of the city,” Stanizai said.

Canadian forces launched an offensive last month in the Panjwayi district in an effort to clear insurgents from the area. Four Canadian soldiers were killed and several wounded Thursday in separate incidents.

A NATO force, headed by British army Lt. Gen. David Richards, took command from U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan on Monday morning.

American troops are part of the NATO force, which is operating in six southern provinces where the insurgency is active. The mission is NATO’s first ground combat operation in the alliance’s 57-year history.

The Pentagon announced Wednesday that it was sending 11,000 troops, including a combat brigade from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, to replace forces being rotated out of Afghanistan. The U.S. has about 22,000 troops in Afghanistan.

At the news conference Wednesday, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the media that “the U.S. contribution has stayed stable and will remain stable,” despite a planned reduction of at least 3,000 troops announced late last year, the Associated Press said.

Early Thursday, a roadside bomb attack on an armored vehicle near the village of Pashmul killed one Canadian soldier in the NATO force and wounded another.

It was planted on a stretch of Highway 1 about 18 miles west of Kandahar that Canadian troops have dubbed “ambush alley.”

Highway 1 forms part of a ring road joining Afghanistan’s main population centers. It is a vital link between the southern city of Kandahar and Kabul, the Afghan capital.

Three more Canadian soldiers were killed Thursday afternoon near Pashmul when suspected Taliban insurgents attacked a patrol with rocket-propelled grenades, a military statement said. Three soldiers were seriously wounded.

The 241-mile stretch of Highway 1 between Kandahar and Kabul was rebuilt in 2003 with more than $190 million in U.S. aid.

The project was an early centerpiece of the Bush administration’s multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild Afghanistan and end armed conflict in the nation.

Canadian troops are trying to secure the highway against stepped-up attacks by Taliban and allied insurgents.