17 KILLED IN SUCIDE ATTACKS AT AFGHAN PUBLIC BATH

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The Taliban has claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in a bath house in southern Afghanistan that killed 17 people, including a senior border patrol officer.
The attacker detonated himself in the southeastern town of Spin Boldak. He went into a public bath where a border police commander was bathing, a the spokesman for the governor of Kandahar province.

• Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, the insurgency's spokesman in the south, says the attack in the city of Spin Boldak targeted a police officer who served as second-in-command of the border patrol in the Kandahar province area.
• The spokesman for the provincial governor said 23 other people were wounded in the blast that occurred in a bath house as men were washing up before Friday prayer.
• Officials have confirmed the officer was killed, but have not identified him as the second in command of the border patrol.

The blast reflected the continuing instability in Afghanistan, particularly in the Taliban's traditional southern stronghold, scene of some of the fiercest fighting of a war approaching the start of its 10th year.

Source: AP