Suicide bomb in Afghan town

• Last Updated: November 20. 2009 1:20PM UAE / November 20. 2009 9:20AM GMT

A suicide bomber on a motorcycle struck an Afghan town on Friday, killing 12 people in the deadliest attack since President Hamid Karzai got down to the business of a second term.

The attack in the capital of southwestern province Farah came the day after President Karzai was sworn in for another five years, pledging to try to bring peace to the nation and take over security from foreign forces in five years.

The Taliban-led insurgency seeking to topple the Western-backed government is at its deadliest in the eight years since US-led troops ousted their regime in Kabul, slowly encroaching into once peaceful parts of the north and west.

The bomber attacked near the home of the provincial governor, damaging nearby buildings in an area where heavy trucks were being loaded with goods travelling from Farah to Herat, officials said.

“The bomber riding on a motorcycle detonated himself at a main square near my working office in my home,” said the provincial governor Rohul Amin Amin.

“Twelve people, 11 of them civilians and one of them a police officer, were killed,” he added.

About 37 other people, mostly civilians, were wounded in the bombing, the officials said. More than a dozen of the wounded were in a “critical condition” meaning the death toll could rise further, the governor said.

Mr Karzai used his inauguration speech in Kabul on Thursday to express hope that Afghan troops would soon be taking the lead for security, allowing the more than 100,000 NATO and US troops to scale back.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also proposed a timetable for a gradual security handover from 2010 but the US defence secretary Robert Gates said it was too soon to set a timeline.

“I think I would rather have those on the ground in Afghanistan make the judgment call about when a province or a district was ready to be turned over, rather than specific dates,” Mr Gates told reporters on Thursday.

*AFP