Kabul, Afghanistan – A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded bazaar in central Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 17 other people and injuring 51 others, officials said.
At least 12 of the dead were children, the Afghan Interior Ministry said in a statement. It was one of the deadliest attacks in a year that has already seen an escalation in suicide bombings by Taliban insurgents.
“Some of the children were walking to school, while other children were selling goods in the market,” said Gen. Qasem Khan, police chief of Oruzgan province, where the explosion hit the town of Deh Rawood.
Among the injured were eight NATO troops who may have been the bomber’s intended target. U.S. Air Force Maj. John Thomas said that a foot patrol of alliance soldiers was in the market at the time.
The nationalities of the injured soldiers were not released, but that part of Afghanistan, a region where the insurgency is particularly intense, is normally under the protection of Dutch troops.
The bomber apparently detonated his explosives outside a pharmacy as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization patrol entered the bazaar, Khan said. Some shops were destroyed by the force of the blast.
The town, in a remote part of Oruzgan not far from the border of Kandahar province, is a magnet for residents of nearby villages who do their shopping there.
