17 Killed By Afghan Market Blast

A suicide bomber targeted a NATO patrol in a crowded marketplace in southern Afghanistan Tuesday, killing 17 civilians, officials said.

At least 30 people were among the wounded, including seven Western soldiers, officials said.

The bomber, who was on foot, blew himself up in a crowded area in the southern province of Uruzgan, said Gen. Qassim Khan, provincial police chief. Schoolchildren were among those wounded, Khan said.

Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said seven NATO troops apparently on a foot patrol were wounded in the blast.

Most soldiers in Uruzgan province are Dutch, though NATO couldn't immediately confirm the wounded soldiers' nationalities.

Earlier Monday, an Afghan soldier opened fire inside a military base, killing an American and four Afghans, while a U.S.-led coalition raid in the east killed a Taliban leader and two children, officials said.

At a military base in the western city of Herat, an Afghan soldier killed three Afghan troops and a civilian, and wounded 12 others, said Lt. Col. David Johnson, a U.S. spokesman. An American soldier — an adviser training the Afghan military who was the apparent target of the rampage — was shot and later died of his wounds, the U.S.-led coalition said.

Gen. Fazeluddin Sayar, an Afghan commander, said the gunman told authorities he had a dream telling him to start jihad, or holy war. "That is why I came to kill this American," Sayar quoted the gunman as saying.

During the coalition raid at a home in eastern Paktia province, suspected militants fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades at the U.S. and Afghan troops, forcing the soldiers to return fire. Two children were killed in the exchange, said Maj. Donald Korpi, a U.S. spokesman.

"When someone shoots at you with an RPG, you're going to return fire," Korpi said. "It's very sad and we hate to see any civilian killed, especially a child. ... We had no indication whatsoever there were kids in there."

The midlevel leader killed in the raid was identified as Commander Saleem, whom the U.S. accused of having attacked Afghan and foreign troops. A woman inside Saleem's house was also wounded in the crossfire and evacuated for treatment, the coalition said.
Civilian deaths in Afghanistan have been a recurring theme this year and have dented Afghan support of the foreign military mission.

President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly asked international forces to do all they can to avoid such deaths. U.S. and NATO commanders say they frequently withhold fire if they think their attack will cause civilian casualties, but they reserve the right to defend themselves.

Afghan authorities, meanwhile, showed off a captured 14-year-old boy from Pakistan whom officials said had intended to set off a suicide bomb against an Afghan governor.

Afghanistan's intelligence service showed off the 14-year-old Pakistani boy, identified as Rafiq Ullah, at a news conference also attended by the boy's father, Mati Ullah. The two shed tears and hugged in front of journalists.
The father said he had asked his son's teachers at the religious school he attends where his boy was but couldn't get a clear answer.

"I didn't know my son was going to carry out a suicide attack in Afghanistan," Mati Ullah said, his eyes full of tears.

The boy had been instructed by a Pakistani Muslim cleric to carry out the suicide attack, said Sayed Ansary, a spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence service. Rafiq Ullah's target was the governor of Khost province, where the boy was caught on Saturday.
In brief comments to reporters, the boy gave the same account of his mission.

In the south, Taliban fighters ambushed a police patrol over the weekend, and the subsequent battle left six police and 12 militants dead, said Kandahar provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqib. About 20 Taliban fighters were wounded in the engagement, he said, and several police are missing.

Saqib said "a large number" of Taliban launched the attack, but he didn't give numbers.

Elsewhere in Kandahar province, Taliban fighters beheaded two civilians they accused of being spies for the government or NATO, Saqib said.

In the east, insurgents fired mortars at a village in Kunar province, killing a boy and wounding eight other people, including five NATO soldiers, a NATO statement said Monday.

The 10-year-old boy died after two mortar rounds hit a village in Nari district on Saturday, the statement said.

The attack also left five alliance soldiers and three Afghan civilians wounded, it said. NATO did not release the nationalities of the wounded soldiers, but most of the troops in that region are American.Violence has risen sharply in recent weeks. More than 3,100 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Western and Afghan officials.