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HERAT, Afghanistan: A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle blew himself up in a town in southwestern Afghanistan on Friday, killing 12 people and wounding dozens more, local officials said.
The attack in Farah occurred the day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai was sworn in for a second term, pledging to try to bring peace to the nation and take over security from foreign forces in five years.
The bomber struck in an area where heavy trucks were being loaded up with goods travelling from Farah to neighbouring Herat, police said.
"A suicide bomber with a motorcycle carried out a suicide attack in the centre of Farah town in the area of Ada Herat," said Faqir Ahmad Askar, police chief of the southwestern province of Farah.
“Twelve people, 11 of them civilians and one of them a police officer were killed," provincial governor Rohul Amin Amin told AFP, updating an earlier toll of six given by police.
About 37 other people, mostly civilians, were wounded in the bombing, officials said. More than a dozen were in critical condition so "the death toll may rise," the governor said.
"The bomber riding on a motocycle detonated himself at a main square near my working office in my home," the governor said, adding that the blast caused damage to some nearby buildings.
The suicide bombing a day after police said Afghan security forces backed by tribal militiamen killed six Taliban militants in the same province after the rebels beheaded two tribal leaders on the weekend.
The Taliban-led insurgency dogged Afghanistan is now at its deadliest in the eight years since US-led troops ousted their extreme Islamist regime in Kabul, slowly encroaching into previously peaceful parts of the north and west.
Karzai used his inauguration speech in Kabul on Thursday voicing plans for Afghan troops to take the lead for security in the coming years, allowing the more than 100,000 NATO and US troops to scale back.
"We are determined that within the next five years the Afghan forces are capable of taking the lead in ensuring security and stability across the country," he said.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also proposed a timetable for a gradual security handover from 2010, but US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said it was too soon to set a timeline.
- AFP/yb
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