Taliban deny responsibility for deadly Kandahar blast (Roundup)

Aug 26, 2009, 15:04 GMT

Kabul - A Taliban spokesman said Wednesday that the militants were not behind a deadly attack in the southern city of Kandahar that left 43 people dead the previous day.

'We were not involved in last evening's attack in Kandahar city that killed dozens of our innocent people,' Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi told the German Press Agency dpa by phone from an undisclosed location.

'We strongly condemn the attack,' he said.

The Taliban often deny responsibility for attacks in which a large number of civilians are killed.

The blast, which is believed to have been triggered by a truck loaded with explosives, killed 43 Afghans and wounded 65 others, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The blast also flattened at least 12 houses and damaged several others. It set alight a wedding hall and broke windows as far as 1 kilometre away.

Gholam Ali Wahdat, the police commander for southern Afghanistan, confirmed that most of the victims were civilians.

Officials in Kandahar province had earlier said they believed the explosion was caused by several explosive-laden vehicles that went off simultaneously.

The area of the blast, which took place near government offices, remained sealed off to traffic Wednesday as police rescue teams continued to search for civilians trapped under rubble.

Zelmai Ayoubi, spokesman for the provincial governor, said at least four Pakistani workers who were employed by a Japanese construction company were among those killed.

The blast occurred as Kandahar residents had gathered at homes and restaurants to break their day-long Ramadan fast. Like many Islamic countries, Afghanistan, where around 99 per cent of the population is Muslim, observes fasting during the holy month of Ramadan from dawn to dusk.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack in a statement which said he had held an emergency meeting with his security chiefs in Kabul and ordered them to find out facts surrounding the incident.

The president also ordered government authorities to donate around 500 dollars to the families of the victims while Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar was sent to the province to launch an investigation, a separate statement said.

The attack, which was the deadliest in Afghanistan in recent months, was also condemned by UN envoy Kai Eide and the US embassy in Afghanistan.

'The disregard for civilian lives shown by the perpetrators of this attack is staggering,' said Kai Eide, the UN special representative to Afghanistan.

The blast occurred about an hour after the Afghan Independent Election Commission announced partial results from the country's presidential election last week, which the radical Islamist Taliban had urged voters to boycott.

Meanwhile Qari Jahangir, head of the justice department of the northern province of Kunduz, was killed Wednesday when a bomb placed in his car exploded in the centre of Kunduz city, said Abdul Razaq Yaqoubi, the provincial police chief.