A bomb attached to a bicycle killed at least 10 people in the southern Afghan city of Khandahar today.
A reporter saw wrecked bicycles, victims' blood and shattered glass from a passing truck strewn across the street in the east of the city, which was quickly sealed off by dozens of Afghan and US soldiers.
Eight of the dead were children, aged from seven to 15, who had been playing on a patch of nearby waste ground, Deputy Police Chief Salim Khan said. Up to 58 people were injured, officials said, several of them seriously.
A soldier said authorities arrested a man spotted running away from the scene shortly before the explosion. The man, who appeared to be an Afghan, was caught trying to hide in a nearby home. "This was the work of the Taliban. The man looked like he was a Talib fighter," the soldier said.
In the capital, Kabul, President Hamid Karzai interrupted celebratory talks with delegates from a convention that has just ratified a new post-Taliban constitution to condemn the attack as "barbarism."
"These enemies of Afghanistan, who hide in the darkness to launch attacks on innocent civilians, must be eliminated, and they will be eliminated," his spokesman said.