A bicycle bomb exploded on Tuesday on a street in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, killing at least 10 people, and shattering cars and windows in the area, witnesses and police said.
The victims all appeared to be Afghans who were walking on the street when the blast occurred, said deputy police chief Salim Khan. He said at least 15 other people were injured.
A soldier, Amanullah Popolzai, said authorities arrested a man spotted running away from the scene shortly before the explosion.
The man, who appeared to be an Afghan, was caught trying to hide in a nearby home.
“This was the work of the Taliban. The man looked like he was a Talib fighter,” Popolzai said.
A badly damaged truck was in the middle of the road after the explosion, its driver among the dead. The torn metal of about a dozen bicycles littered the asphalt.
The bomb had been attached to one of the bikes, Khan said.
The blast occurred in a residential sector of eastern Kandahar, about 100 metres from an Afghan military base. Dozens of Afghan and American soldiers immediately swarmed into the area, sealing it off.
The attack was the latest in a stream of shootings, kidnappings and bomb blasts against civilians as well as soldiers in the south and east of the country, many of the them claimed by Taliban militants.
Many have occurred in the Kandahar area, the former Taliban stronghold that is now the focus of a US plan to deploy troops and civilian reconstruction workers across the south to make it safe for summer elections and badly needed reconstruction.
On Monday, gunmen attacked the office of the United Nations refugee agency in Kandahar, throwing a grenade and firing shots but causing no injuries.
Exactly one month ago, a bomb ripped through a bustling bazaar in the city, wounding 20 Afghans, in an attack the Taliban said targeted — but missed — US soldiers. – Sapa-AP