Car bombs kill 36 in southern Afghanistan (2nd Roundup)

Aug 25, 2009, 18:28 GMT

   Kabul - Thirty-six people were killed and 64 wounded in a multiple car bomb attack in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province on Tuesday evening, officials said.

   'The information I received from our police forces in the area says that 36 people were killed and 64 others were wounded in the blasts,' Gholam Ali Wahdat, police commander for the southern region told German Press Agency dpa.

   The blasts destroyed dozens of homes located in the central part of Kandahar city, the provincial capital, Zelmai Ayoubi, a spokesman for the provincial governor told dpa.

   Ayoubi said the attack took place near the office of a private road construction company, but according to witnesses, the bombs went off near a building housing the country's secret service. Shots were also heard following the explosion.

   'We just finished dinner when there was a loud explosion that shook the whole city,' said resident Daoud Ahmadi, adding that the blast cut off the electricity in some parts of the city.

   Kandahar is the former stronghold of the Taliban, which has carried out a series of bomb attacks in the region this year.

   Initial reports said the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) was the target of Tuesday's attack, but this was denied by a spokesman for the organization.

   Speaking in Gatineau, near Ottawa, spokesman Lucas Robinson said CIDA has its headquarters at the Canadian military base in Kandahar, about 2 kilometres from where the five car bombs exploded.

   No CIDA workers were injured in the blasts, he told the German Press Agency dpa.

   Robinson said the confusion might have arisen because the abbreviation for the Japanese construction company that was hit by the attack was similar to that of CIDA's.

Earlier Tuesday, four US soldiers were killed by a bomb while on patrol in the volatile south, but the exact location was not released by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Some 296 foreign troops have died in Afghanistan this year, surpassing the previous deadliest year, 2008, when 294 soldiers died, according to icasualties.org, an independent website that tracks casualties in the Iraq and Afghan conflicts.

This month, 63 foreign soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan, according to icasualties.org.

The most violent month in the Afghan conflict for international forces was in July when 76 foreign soldiers were killed as they mounted offensives in preparations for this month's presidential election.

Tuesday also saw the first results announced for the country's presidential election, which the radical Islamist Taliban had urged voters to boycott.

A partial vote count showed incumbent Hamid Karzai narrowly leading his former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, by 40.6 per cent to 38.7 per cent, the Independent Election Commission said.

The commission released the results from about 10 per cent of the polling stations from Thursday's election.

'I want to emphasise, that these are partial results,' Chief Electoral Officer Daoud Ali Najafi said. 'They could change tomorrow or they could change the day after tomorrow.

The commission has said it expected to release the final results around September 17, but should the trend seen Tuesday continue, a run-off between Karzai and Abdullah would be necessary.