7 Jan 2011

Suicide bomber targets Afghan public baths

10:48 pm on 7 January 2011

A suicide attack inside a public bathhouse in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province has killed 17 people, including a police commander, and wounded 21 others.

A spokesperson for the governor of Kandahar said the target of the raid in the town of Spin Boldak on the Pakistani border was the police commander, who was bathing at the time of the attack on Friday.

The other casualties were all civilians, he said.

A police official confirmed the attack had been carried out by a suicide bomber.

The suicide raid was the deadliest attack so far in 2011 and comes after the end of the bloodiest year of a war that has now dragged on for more than nine years, Reuters reports.