28 Killed at Afghan Government Office Suicide Blast

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A suicide attacker killed 28 people and wounded 32 others on Monday when he blew himself up in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, interior ministry spokesman Zemerai Bashary said.

Bashary said all of the victims were civilians, describing the attack as "a disaster.”

Abdul Rehman Sayedkhaili, the provincial police chief, earlier put the toll at 26 dead and 36 wounded.

The blast took place shortly after noon (0730 GMT) as people were queuing outside a district office in the Imam Sahib district of Kunduz province to collect new identity cards and other paperwork.

Meanwhile, Afghan officials accused NATO forces of killing a family of six in an air strike, a day after President Hamid Karzai said 50 innocent people had died in aerial attacks nearby.

The incidents highlight again the sensitive issue of civilian casualties in the war against the Taliban, which is now in its tenth and arguably most critical year amid official warnings of more hard fighting ahead.

A limited withdrawal of foreign forces is expected to start from more stable provinces of Afghanistan from July ahead of a full transition to Afghan control by 2014.

In the latest civilian deaths, a couple and their four children were killed overnight when a misdirected NATO missile hit their mud-built home in Nangarhar province, which borders Pakistan in the east, local officials told Agence France Presse.

"The air strike was originally targeting three insurgents who were planting mines on a road. One missile mistakenly hit a house and killed six civilians, all members of the same family," said provincial spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai.

Mohammad Hassen, governor of Khogyani district, confirmed the incident took place on his patch.(AFP-Naharnet)