Suicide bomb kills 11 Afghan civilians: Police

Kabul, July 10: A suicide car bomber killed 11 civilians in an attack on NATO forces in southern Afghanistan today, the provincial police chief said.

The attack happened in a bazaar of the Deh Rawud district of Uruzgan and school children were amongst those killed in the attack, Mohammad Qasim told Reuters. He said 30 people were wounded.

A spokeswoman for the NATO-led force in Kabul said six Afghan civilians were killed and 13 wounded. Seven soldiers from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were also hurt.

''This is an indiscriminate use of a Taliban extremist bomb which has killed and injured both civilians and soldiers,'' said Lieutenant-Colonel Mike Smith, the ISAF spokesman in the south.

Taliban insurgents have stepped up the number of suicide attacks against the nearly 50,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan this year after suffering heavy casualties in conventional attacks.

Some 6,000 people have been killed, including 1,500 civilians, in Afghanistan in the last 18 months.

Reuters>