KABUL, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-one civilians were killed in a suicide car bombing, while one Canadian soldier was killed and three others injured on Thursday in the volatile southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan.
The suicide bombing killed 21 civilians and wounded 13 others at 2:00 p.m. local time in a crowded market in Panjwai district, Interior Ministry spokesman Yusuf Stanikzai told Xinhua, adding some children were among the casualties.
Panjwai, a hotbed of the Taliban, lies some 30 km west of Kandahar city, capital of Kandar province.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the spokesman blamed the Taliban for the crime.
Some NATO soldiers were patrolling near the market but suffered no casualties, a NATO spokesman said.
Sayed Aziz, the provincial police chief, claimed the attack was aimed at the NATO troops.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) took command in southern Afghanistan, the Taliban's stronghold, from the U.S.-led coalition forces on Monday, thrusting the 26-nation NATO into its toughest combat mission in its 57-year history.
On Thursday, a predawn roadside bomb attack killed a Canadian soldier of ISAF and wounded another on a key highway near Pashmul village on the outskirts of Kandahar city.
Hours later, three other Canadian soldiers on patrol were killed in the same area by a roadside bomb.
About 2,200 Canadian soldiers have been deployed in Kandahar province, which is suffering from Taliban insurgence.
The ISAF has suffered four fatalities after Monday's command shift. Three British soldiers from ISAF were killed in a Taliban ambush in the southern Helmand province on Tuesday.
Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Yusuf Stanikzai told Xinhua on Thursday that the police, backed by NATO aircraft, killed 22 Taliban militants in Garmser district of Helamend province late Wednesday, and that five policemen were injured.
However, a local police chief, Ghulam Rasool, said only 10 Taliban insurgents were killed in the conflict, according to some Afghan media.
On Tuesday, a fierce clash killed 17 Taliban fighters and one policeman in the same district, the center town which was temporarily captured by some Taliban extremists last month.
In southern Zabul province's capital Qalat, 12 highway policemen involved in robbery surrendered to the Taliban with a jeep and 10 assault rifles on Wednesday morning, provincial police Chief Noor Mohammad Paktin said Thursday.
Afghanistan is being harassed by increasing Taliban-linked violence this year, during which over 1,700 people, mostly Taliban extremists, have been killed.
More than 70 foreign troops have also lost their lives in the war-weary central Asian country. Enditem
