A suicide attacker blew himself up among a crowd of Afghan laborers lining up to enter a NATO base in eastern Afghanistan early yesterday, killing 10 and wounding 14, an official said.
The attack, similar to scores carried out by the extremist Taliban movement that is waging a vicious insurgency backed by the al-Qaeda terror network, was the deadliest of a handful of suicide blasts this year.
The bomber, who appeared to have been on foot, detonated his load of explosives outside a gate of an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base near the eastern city of Khost.
"Ten civilians were killed and 14 injured," Qasim Jan, an aide to the provincial governor, said.
The crowd was waiting to pass security checks to enter the base to start the day's work, Jan said.
As officials scrambled to confirm details with the area cordoned off by foreign security forces, the president's office had a slightly lower toll based on initial reports.
"Six of our compatriots, innocent civilian laborers who had come to work to feed their families, were martyred in the suicide blast in Khost today," a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai told reporters in Kabul.
"Around 10 were wounded. The president is saddened by the incident and has ordered the provincial governor to help the affected families," spokesman Karim Rahimi said.
There were no ISAF casualties, spokeswoman Angela Billings said in Kabul.
Police spokesman Zemarai Bashary could not immediately give details of casualties.
"We cannot say -- the area was blocked by the coalition forces and no one was allowed in," he said.
Foreign troops cordoned off the area nearly 1km from the blast site and did not allow anyone to enter.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, but suicide attacks are a hallmark of the Taliban-led insurgency that kicked off when the hardline Islamic movement was driven from power by US-led forces in 2001.
The extremists have carried out several attacks on Afghans employed by the foreign military forces in Afghanistan and warned them against taking such jobs.
There were nearly 140 such attacks in the country last year, up from 27 in 2005, US officials said.
ISAF said it recorded nearly 120 suicide blasts last year. They killed close to 200 civilians, 54 Afghan security force members and 19 ISAF troops.
There have already been a number of suicide blasts around the country this year, but yesterday's was the deadliest.
Eastern Afghanistan has seen a sharp rise in attacks since the Pakistani government last year reached a peace deal with militants and tribal elders in North Waziristan, which was meant to stop cross-border infiltration.
Military officials said last week there had been nearly a fourfold increase in cross-border attacks in a 60-day period after the deal was finalized in September.
Last year was the deadliest in the insurgency in Afghanistan, with approximately 4,000 people killed.
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