Dozens killed at Afghan wedding

At least 39 people have been killed by a suicide bomber at a wedding party in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province. More than 70 people were injured when the blast occurred on Wednesday night as men sat down to eat at the celebration.

“A suicide bomber went inside the party where hundreds of people were sitting and blew himself up,” a police official said of the blast in Arghandab district.
Mohammad Anaas, a senior official with the city administration, said at least 39 bodies were transported to the Kandahar central hospital.
Nato has said that the Taliban committed the strike, while the Taliban have said that Nato are behind the attack.
James Bays, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in the capital Kabul, said: “Certainly we know what happened which is a very large explosion … But we have no idea who was behind it.
“The Taliban say they are not responsible, saying they deplore it and condemn it in the strongest terms.”

‘Enormous explosion’

Toror Yalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar, told Al Jazeera that a survivor had said a car bomb was the cause of the explosion.
“We don’t have any women casualties. Most of them are adult men and some are young children,” he said.
The man getting married was a policeman from one of the checkpoints in the area, the governor added.
Mohammad Zanif, the groom’s brother, told the AFP news agency that the groom had been wounded.
“There was an enormous explosion and as a result everyone there was either killed or injured,” he said.
Relatives of the wounded gathered at an area hospital and local television appealed for people to donate blood to help treat the injured.
Kandahar is the focus of a build-up by US-led military forces trying to push back the Taliban and the US has previously said that they are planning a major operation in the area soon.

Nato operation

Bays said that Arghandab used to be a fertile, agriculturally rich area, but has changed to region of conflict in recent years, particularly in the last three years.
“It is an area that Nato concentrates on as they continue their operations in the Kandahar area,” he said.
“Nato have for a long time told us that there is going to be this be operation around now, in June.
“But it looks like it is not going to happen as a major operation now. One reason is the Afghan government has major concerns over a major operation.
“And because things aren’t going well in Helmand and the US military is putting a lot of resources there because there is a lot of Taliban activity there.
“We do know that there is a lot of special forces’ activity there which they don’t talk about so much and a lot of Taliban activity who are trying to take out senior government figures.”

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies