Bicycle bomb kills 13 in southern Afghanistan

A bomb concealed on a bicycle killed 13 people today in southern Afghanistan, as the Pentagon's top military officer said Nato forces hope to reverse the Taliban's momentum in the south with an upcoming offensive in Kandahar.

Forty-five people, including eight children, were wounded in the blast, which occurred in the Nahr-e-Sarraj district just north of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, deputy provincial police chief Kamaluddin, said.

The bomb exploded near a crowd gathered to receive free vegetable seeds provided by the British government as part of a programme to encourage them not to plant opium poppy, provincial government spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said.

Casualty figures fluctuated several times during the day because of communications problems in the area, Kamaluddin said.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which president Hamid Karzai blamed on "enemies of the Afghan people who are against peace".

The acting provincial head of agriculture, Ghulam Sahki, said the blast could have been the work of drug dealers trying to stop the alternative crop programme. Nato and the Afghan government hope poppy farmers in the south, where most of the
world's opium is grown, will adopt legal crops with the help of cash incentives and programmes like the seed  distribution.

The narcotics trade helps fund the Taliban insurgency.

A recent Nato operation in the Helmand town of Marjah, south of Lashkar Gah, struck at the heart of the Taliban opium business. Nato, US and Afghan forces took control of the town in a three-week offensive in February and early March but face a fearful and mistrustful population as they work to set up a functioning government.

In Kabul, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said the operation in Marjah was moving forward successfully and that an upcoming offensive in and around the main southern city of Kandahar would be key to stopping the Taliban's growing influence in the south.