Picnic site blast kills over 80 Afghans

By Ismail Sameem and Mirwais Afghan

ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed more than 80 people at a picnic spot in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar on Sunday in the most deadly attack since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, the government said.

The attack will add urgency to a debate about how the United States and Afghanistan's other allies can help stem militant violence and promote stability.

"This event ... left behind more than 80 killed and 50 wounded," the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The death toll may rise because some of the wounded were in a critical condition.

The attack happened in a field where a crowd of people including police were watching dog fights in Arghandab, on the western outskirts of Kandahar city.

Kandahar governor Assadullah Khalid said it was the work of Afghanistan's enemies, a term used by the government to refer to Taliban insurgents and their al Qaeda militant allies.

The Taliban, behind a surge of suicide attacks against foreign forces and the Afghan government, could not immediately be contacted for comment.

The head of an auxiliary police force in Kandahar, Abdul Hakim, was among the dead, Khalid said.

After the blast, some of Hakim's guards fired at the crowd causing casualties, witnesses said.

Reporters were not allowed to talk to the wounded in hospitals and officials had no comment about the reports of police firing.

The Interior Ministry said it was the bloodiest attack since U.S.-led troops overthrew the Taliban government in 2001.

In November, a suicide bomb attack against a group of lawmakers and subsequent firing by police killed more than 75 people, including six politicians, in the northern province of Baghlan.

After that blast, it was not clear how many were killed by the bomb and how many by the police firing.

STRONGHOLD

Thirteen other policemen and six children were killed on Sunday, a police official near the site of the blast said.

"The match was going on and all of a sudden the explosion went off," said witness Abdul Rahman whose brother was killed.