Car bomb kills 37 civilians at market in southern Afghanistan, day after deadliest attack

A suicide car bomber targeting a Canadian military convoy detonated his explosives at a busy market in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing 37 civilians, officials said.

At least 30 people were wounded in the attack in Spin Boldak, a town in Kandahar province near the border with Pakistan, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary. Three Canadian soldiers were lightly wounded, said Gov. Asadullah Khalid.

The attack comes one day after Afghanistan's deadliest bombing since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. More than 100 people were killed Sunday by a suicide bomber outside Kandahar city, Khalid said Monday, raising the original death toll of 80.

The back-to-back bombings made the two-day period the deadliest for Afghan civilians since the Taliban's ouster.

The attacks could also serve as a warning that insurgents have changed tactics. Though militant attacks occasionally have killed dozens of civilians, insurgents have generally sought to avoid targeting ordinary Afghans.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for Monday's attack. Spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said the bombing was carried out by an Abdul Rahman from Kandahar. When asked about the large number of civilians killed, Ahmadi claimed that 10 foreign soldiers and "a large number of police" were killed; officials gave no indication that was true.

The country had a record level of violence last year, and analysts and military leaders here have predicted that 2008 could turn even deadlier.

Just over the border from Spin Boldak, in a hospital in Chaman, Pakistan, Abdul Hakim lay in a hospital bed, his clothes caked with dust and splattered with blood. Though the Afghan-Pakistan border was closed Monday because of elections in Pakistan, several of the wounded were taken to Chaman for treatment.

"A white Toyota Corolla car rammed the second vehicle in the (military) convoy as it passed through the bazaar," said Hakim, who witnessed the attack from his grocery store. "Then there was a huge explosion. It was dust. I do not know what happened to me."

Squadron Leader Peter Darling, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force in southern Afghanistan, said no NATO troops were killed in the attack, but he did not know if any were wounded. He said ISAF forces provided medical assistance at the scene.

"We strongly condemn this cowardly attack on the civilian population, who were attacked by insurgents during the course of their daily business," Darling said.

Mohammed Akhtar, a doctor at the Chaman hospital, said nine Afghan civilians were treated at his facility and that one later died. Khalid said several of the wounded were in critical condition and that the death toll could rise.

One of the Canadian military vehicles was heavily damaged in the attack, as were several shops and civilian vehicles, said Abdul Razeq, the Spin Boldak border police chief.

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Associated Press reporters Matiullah Achakzai in Chaman, Pakistan, and Rahim Faiez in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.