KHOST, Jan 23: More than 30 people were killed in Afghanistan on Tuesday in violence blamed on the Taliban Ten people died when they were caught up in a suicide blast among labourers queuing for work at a Nato base. Nine policemen died in a clash in Uruzgan province after a highway police convoy was ambushed by guerrillas.

The suicide attack, similar to scores carried out allegedly by the Taliban, was the deadliest of a handful of suicide blasts this year.

The bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body while he was standing in a crowd of people waiting to pass security checks to enter an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base near the eastern city of Khost.

“As a result 10 of our compatriots were martyred and 14 others were wounded, may their souls rest in peace,” the interior ministry, which handles police matters, said in a statement.

Eight of the dead were manual labourers employed on the base and two were guards from a private security company, ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.

Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Moqbil said the `brutal and cowardly’ attack was carried out by `mercenaries loyal to foreigners’.This is a likely reference to the Taliban, whom Afghan officials allege are directed, indoctrinated and equipped in Pakistan.

President Hamid Karzai was `saddened by the incident and has ordered the provincial governor to help the affected families’, his spokesman, Karim Rahimi, told a media briefing.

Mr Rahimi said the dead were `innocent civilian labourers who had come to work to feed their families.”—AFP