Children caught in huge Afghan suicide blast

More than 60 people were feared dead in a huge suicide bomb blast targeting government officials in Afghanistan today.

Schoolchildren who had gathered to meet the delegation in the northern province of Baghlan were among the victims.

The official death toll was put at 28, including five visiting officials, but dozens more bodies were removed from the scene by relatives according to local doctors.

The bomb went off outside a sugar factory as the parliamentary group was about to go inside.

At least 42 schoolchildren were among 81 people wounded.

“The children were standing on both sides of the street, and were shaking the hands of the officials, then suddenly the explosion happened,” Doctor Mohammed Yousuf Fayez said.

Kamin Khan, a police official, said people “everywhere” were dead and wounded, including police, children, and officials from the Department of Agriculture.

Among the dead was Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, a former Afghan commerce minister and a powerful member of the Northern Alliance.

President Hamid Karzai’s office confirmed the deaths of five parliamentarians.

“This heinous act of terrorism is against Islam and humanity and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” Mr Karzai said.

“It is the work of the enemies of peace and security in Afghanistan.”

The attack is among the deadliest in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

Taliban bombers have killed regional governors in the past, but never hit so many high-ranking officials in one go.

The region is known for tensions between the mainly ethnic Tajik government leadership and remnants of the militant group Hezb-i-Islami, whose fugitive leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is allied to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

This year has been the deadliest in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban. More than 5,700 people have been killed in insurgency-related violence.