Kabul: A senior provincial official was killed in northern Afghanistan on Wednesday while the death toll for a deadly blast in the southern city of Kandahar city reached 43, officials said.
Head of the justice department of the northern province of Kunduz, Qari Jahangir, was driving to his office on Wednesday morning when a bomb which was placed in his car exploded in the centre of Kunduz city, Abdul Razaq Yaqoubi, the provincial police chief said.
He said Jahangir, who was the sole occupant of the vehicle, was killed and his car was badly damaged in the explosion.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, talking over phone from an undisclosed location, claimed that their fighters placed the bomb. He said the bomb, which was remotely detonated, killed three more officials in the vehicle.
Taliban-led attacks are on the rise in the northern region, which was relatively peaceful until recently except for sporadic attacks, mostly roadside bombs.
Meanwhile, the Afghan's interior ministry said Wednesday's deadly blast in Kandahar province killed 43 people and wounded 65.
The police commander for the southern region, Gholam Ali Wahdat, said earlier that 40 were killed and more than 64 other people, mostly civilians were wounded in the blast, which was triggered by a truck full of explosives.
Officials in the province had earlier said that they believe the explosion was caused by several explosive-laden vehicles that went off simultaneously.
Spokesman for the provincial governor of Kandahar, Zelmai Ayoubi gave a different death toll, saying the blast killed 38 people, mostly civilians, and including four Pakistani workers who were employed by a Japanese construction company.
The area, which is located near government offices, remained sealed off to traffic as police rescue teams were still searching for civilians trapped under rubble.
The blast destroyed dozens of houses, set alight a wedding hall and broke windows as far as one kilometre away.
The blast occurred as Kandahar residents had gathered at homes and restaurants to break their day-long fast. Like many Islamic countries, Afghanistan, where around 99 per cent of the population is Muslim, observes the holy month of Ramadan from dawn to dusk.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack in a statement issued by his office on Wednesday. It said the President held an emergency meeting with his security chiefs in Kabul and ordered them to find out facts surrounding the incident.
The blast occurred around one hour after the Afghan Independent Election Commission announced partial results of country's presidential election, which the radical Islamist Taliban had urged voters to boycott.
A partial vote count showed Karzai narrowly leading his former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, by 40.6 per cent to 38.7 per cent, the Independent Election Commission said.
The commission released the results from about 10 per cent of the polling stations from Thursday's election. There were around 28,000 polling stations around the country on election day.
The commission has said it expected to release the final results around September 17, but should the trend seen on Tuesday continue, a run-off between Karzai and Abdullah would be necessary.
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