AFGHANISTAN: Suicide bomber kills 13

KANDAHAR, 7 Feb 2006 (IRIN) - A suicide bomber killed 13 and wounded 13 others when he blew himself up at police headquarters in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, officials said on Tuesday.

"Around 9:45 AM local time, a suicide bomber tried to enter police headquarters. While police were searching him, he detonated the explosives which killed 13 people, among whom seven are police and six civilians," interior ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai told IRIN, adding eight civilians and five police were also wounded during the attack - the 20th suicide bombing in recent weeks in Afghanistan.

The past four months have seen an upsurge in violence in the region. The fighting has left parts of southern and eastern regions off-limits to aid workers. A series of attacks on schools in Helmand and Kandahar provinces have forced many to close.

"Ongoing insecurity in Helmand, Uruzgan and Kandahar [provinces] has become a big headache for our relief activities. Our operational area is getting restricted day by day," Mohammad Nasim Karim, head of the International Organization for Migration�s Kandahar regional office, said.

The upsurge in bloodshed comes as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) prepares to expand its Afghan peacekeeping force into the volatile south. The 9,000-strong force now operates in the relatively secure north and west, as well as in the capital, Kabul.

A man was killed on Tuesday when a mob condemning cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that originally appeared in a Danish newspaper, attacked Norwegian NATO troops in the northwestern city of Maymana, the fourth Afghan to die in days of protests, officials said.

Three people were killed at a cartoon protest outside the huge US military base at Bagram, north of Kabul, where at least a dozen others were wounded.

A Canadian diplomat was among three people killed in a suicide bomb attack in Kandahar on 15 January 15.

The southern border town of Spin Boldak suffered Afghanistan's deadliest suicide attack when more than 22 men were killed in a blast at a wrestling match in mid-January.

Insecurity remains a major problem in Afghanistan, with about 1,700 people killed last year in militant violence, making 2005 the deadliest year since 2001. The toll is double that of 2004.

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