KANDAHAR, July 10: Seventeen civilians, a dozen of them schoolboys, were killed and 30 others wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a NATO convoy in southern Afghanistan Tuesday, officials said.

Nato’s International Security Assistance Force said eight of its soldiers were wounded in the attack, some of them seriously.

A spokesman for the Taliban movement claimed responsibility for the blast in Uruzgan province.

The bomber, who was on foot, blew himself up as a convoy of ISAF troops passed through a bazaar in the small town of Dehrawood, about 400 kilometres southwest of Kabul, provincial police chief General Mohammad Qasem said.

“There was a suicide bombing. Seventeen people — all of them civilians — have been killed and around 30 others were injured,” he said, citing figures provided by police on the ground.

He said later that 12 of the dead were boys aged between 10 and 15. The remainder were adult men. The interior ministry also said 17 people were killed.

“It was a huge explosion,” said a grocer who identified himself only as Subhanullah.

“A large number of people were killed and injured. They were laying on the road,” he said.

The force of the explosion shattered the windows of his store, and others lining the street, and knocked items off the shelves, he said.

Subhanullah said the targeted convoy drove off without stopping but returned later with Afghan security forces to investigate. ISAF confirmed that the Dehrawood blast was a suicide attack.

“There are ISAF and civilian casualties,” spokesman Major John Thomas said in Kabul, saying more than a dozen civilians were dead and more than 30 wounded.

“This is an indiscriminate use of a Taliban extremist bomb which has killed and injured both civilians and soldiers,” said another ISAF spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Smith.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the bombing had been “bravely carried out by one of our mujahideen (holy warriors).” Tuesday's blast was the deadliest suicide attack since one in Kabul on June 17 that killed 35 people, most of them police trainers.

The Kabul bombing was the worst insurgent attack since the Taliban were driven from government in late 2001 by a US-led alliance.

Civilians are increasingly caught up in the insurgency. About 600 have been killed in the violence this year, according to figures used by the United Nations, around half by Afghan and foreign troops and the rest by militants.

The UN representative in Afghanistan, Tom Koenigs, was shocked.

“I am especially concerned by the reports I am seeing of a large number of children being among the dead from today's bomb,” he said in a statement.

“Such utter disregard for innocent lives is staggering and those behind this must be held responsible.”—AFP