Bomber on Motorbike Kills 20 in Afghanistan

A suicide attacker drove a motorbike into a crowd of wrestling fans Monday and detonated explosives strapped to his body, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 30 others in a southern frontier town.

About 100 people were watching a match at a fair held for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha in the town of Spin Buldak, a key crossing point into Pakistan.

“The motorcycle went up into the air in flames,” said Abdul Samad, who was in the crowd and fled with hordes of other panicked spectators. “It was like doomsday....Some did not have their hands, others had their legs missing.”

Najamuddin, a 24-year-old wrestler who goes by one name, was among the injured treated at a hospital in the Pakistani border town of Chaman.

The explosion seared his hair, beard and left arm, and he broke his right hand after being blown to the ground. “The explosion tossed me into the air and threw me back. When I got up, I saw people lying in blood,” he said from his hospital bed.

Kandahar provincial Gov. Asadullah Khalid said 20 people were killed and at least 30 hurt.

Monday’s incident was the bloodiest in a recent wave of suicide attacks and the third deadly blast in two days in the province, a former stronghold of the Taliban movement.

The motorbike assault came just hours after a bomb attack on a convoy of Afghan army trucks loaded with troops in the city of Kandahar, killing four people and wounding 16.

On Sunday, a suicide car bomb in the same city killed a senior Canadian diplomat and two Afghan civilians.

About 25 suicide bombings have occurred in Afghanistan in the last four months.