Two car bombs exploded Friday in a sprawling housing development in southern Afghanistan linked to the family of President Hamid Karzai, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 60. The twin blasts occurred minutes apart in Aino Mina, an upmarket complex on the outskirts of Kandahar city that was conceived in 2002 and built by investors including President Karzai's businessman brother Mahmoud Karzai.
The target of the attack was a convoy of police vehicles, officials said, but many of the victims were local residents who had gathered at the end of the Friday holiday to eat and socialise. "This pointless attack on innocent Afghans in a peaceful family park is inexcusable," Kandahar governor Tooryalai Wesa said in a statement issued by the province's media centre.
"There were two vehicle IEDs (improvised explosive devices)," Javed Faisal, spokesman for the Kandahar governor, told AFP. "Nine people are dead, including three policemen, and more than 60 people are wounded." He said seven police were among the injured, but the other dead and wounded were local people, many of them children. Kandahar police chief Abdul Raziq confirmed the incident and the death toll of nine. The attack came a day after a suicide car bomb hit a foreign military convoy in Kabul, killing 15 people including six Americans.
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