Afghan market bombs injure 24, mostly children

Twin bomb blasts tore through a market in northern Afghanistan's Baghlan province on Monday, wounding two dozen people, just over half of them school children, officials said. "Overall we have 24 admitted to the hospital, 17 civilians, 13 of them are school students," said Abdul Qahar Qanit, a doctor in the local hospital. He said seven security personnel, including two senior district police officials, were also among the casualties. The explosions occurred one after another, with the second coming after security forces arrived to investigate the first blast, local administration chief Amir Gul told AFP. "There was a blast in Sher Market in Baghlan-i-Markazi. The first blast occurred and wounded some civilians, the second one followed shortly after the first one," he said. He earlier told AFP that 18 people, five of them members of the Afghan security forces, had been injured, adding that the explosions were from improvised explosive devices rather than suicide bombers. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the blasts were similar to attacks carried out by the Taliban as part of their insurgency against President Hamid Karzai's government and his Western allies.