Karzai second term: 35 killed in 24 hours

Bomb attacks on Friday killed at least 20 people in Afghanistan,a deadly start to President Hamid Karzais second term that underscored spiraling insecurity nine years into the US-led war....

Bomb attacks on Friday killed at least 20 people in Afghanistan,a deadly start to President Hamid Karzais second term that underscored spiraling insecurity nine years into the US-led war.

The attacks brought to 35 the number of people killed since Karzai was sworn in for another five years on Thursday,pledging to try to bring peace to the nation and take over security from foreign forces in five years.

A suicide bomber on a motorcycle struck the capital of the southwestern province of Farah,killing 15 people near the Governors home. The suicide bomber damaged buildings in Farah in an area where heavy trucks were being loaded,officials said.

Farah Province Police Chief Faqir Mohammad Askar said the target of the attack was a senior police official,who was killed along with two of his bodyguards.

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

Fifteen people have been killed, the Governor said. Apart from a police officer,all the dead were civilians,Amin added. About 38 other people were wounded,officials said. More than a dozen were in a critical condition.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf told Reuters from an undisclosed location and denied his group had carried out the Farah raid.

Story continues below this ad

In a separate incident,an Afghan parliamentarian and former mujahideen commander escaped a roadside bomb blast unhurt on the outskirts of Kabul on Friday,but five of his bodyguards were killed,said a police official who declined to be named.

Abdul Rasul Sayyaf,who heads an Islamic political party and was a prominent anti-Soviet fighter,was driving in a convoy in Paghman just outside Kabul when his convoy was hit by a bomb placed under a bridge.

In his inaugural speech,Karzai said he wanted Afghan forces to take the lead from international military forces in securing the whole country in five years. There are some 110,000 foreign troops,including 68,000 US soldiers,in Afghanistan.