Suicide bomber hits Afghanistan market

A suicide bomber blew himself up in a busy market district in central Afghanistan today, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than a dozen, provincial officials said. The attack happened in the town of Dihrawud, in Uruzgan province, in an area packed with shoppers and traders who had gathered for a weekly bazaar. The provincial governor, Asadullah Hamdan, said 16 people were killed and 13 wounded. The police chief, General Juma Gul Himat, said the dead included three children. Several shops were destroyed. "The terrorists today carried out a suicide attack in the bazaar of Dihrawud ... as a result of which 16 civilians were killed and 13 others were wounded," the office of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, said in a statement. General Abdul Hameed, a senior Afghan army officer in Uruzgan, told Reuters the bomber "had explosives attached to a waistcoat". "He was spotted by a guard of the money market, which is inside the bazaar, and then he blew himself up, killing 20 civilians including the guard," he said. The bombing came a day after the UN released a report which showed that the number of Afghan civilians killed in war-related violence was at its highest level last year. Suicide bombings and other attacks blamed on insurgents were the main cause of death.