By Mirwais Afghan
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber in a bazaar killed atleast 17 civilians, most of them children, and four police onSunday in Afghanistan's southern province of Uruzgan, policesaid.
The bomber targeted a police vehicle in a bazaar in DehRawud district, the provincial police chief told Reuters.
"Seventeen civilians and four policemen died in the attack.Thirty seven more civilians and five police have been wounded,"Juma Khan Himat said by phone, adding the death toll couldrise.
Himat said most of the civilian victims were children.
He blamed Taliban insurgents for the attack, part of arising tide of violence in Afghanistan, where the militantslargely rely on such tactics as part of their campaign againstforeign troops and the Afghan government.
The interior ministry in Kabul said 24 people, four of thempolice, including a senior police were killed in the attack.
Over 800 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan so farthis year, according to the United Nations and Afghanofficials.
Growing insecurity has added to the rising frustration ofmany Afghans nearly seven years after U.S.-led troops overthrewthe Taliban's government after it refused to hand over al Qaedaleaders behind the September 11 attacks on the United States.
The violence comes despite the increasing presence offoreign forces currently numbering more than 70,000. TopTaliban as well as al Qaeda leaders are still at large.
It has prompted some Western politicians to warn recentlythat the country may slide back into anarchy.
Since 2006 when the Taliban regrouped, Afghan and foreigntroops have been locked in almost daily clashes with themilitants who have some sanctuary in the lawless tribal regionsof Pakistan.
In one of the latest such clashes, five Pakistani Talibanwere killed and 13 more wounded after they infiltrated a remotedistrict in northeastern Nuristan on Saturday, interiorministry spokesman Zemarai Bashari said.
The fighting was continuing on Sunday and locals werehelping the police to defend the district, he said. The defenceministry said dozens of insurgents were killed and dozens morewounded in a counter attack of the Afghan army in Nuristan onSunday.
It said only four soldiers were wounded when the insurgentsattacked the soldiers' posts. NATO said its soldiers and Afghanforces were locked in heavy fighting against the militants inan area of neighbouring Kunar. There were casualties on bothsides, the alliance said in a statement, without elaborating.
Separately on Sunday, a roadside bomb killed a soldier fromthe U.S.-led coalition in the southern province of Helmand, theU.S. military said in a statement.
The soldier was killed when his vehicle struck the deviceduring insurgents' attack on a joint patrol of Afghan andcoalition forces, a spokesman for the military separately said.
"...Thirty five militants were killed in a security patrolof Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces inHelmand province, July 12 and 13," he said.
The Taliban could not be immediately reached for commentabout any of the reported incidents.
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Jon Hemming;Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Valerie Lee and MatthewJones)
