Suicide Attacks Kill 12 in Afghanistan

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Source: NYT

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber struck a police station in southern Afghanistan on Monday morning, killing 11 people and wounding 28, the police said. Most of the casualties were members of a counter-narcotics squad.

The attacker, who was on foot, had approached a convoy at police headquarters in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, according to officials. The officers in the convoy were about to head out on a poppy eradication mission in what is the world’s largest heroin-producing region.

“This was a work by Taliban and drug smugglers,” said Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for governor of Helmand. He said the success of recent efforts by security forces to destroy opium-poppy crops had angered local drug barons and insurgents.

In another suicide attack, a man in the southwestern province of Farah detonated an explosive vest Monday, killing himself and a police officer, news agencies reported.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/world/asia/17afghan.html