A suicide bomber killed 10 civilians Sunday when he detonated his explosives near a crowd in southern Afghanistan, while a roadside bomb in the east killed two others, officials said. Meanwhile, Afghanistan's hardline vice president expressed hope that an upcoming national conference will lay the foundation for peace with insurgents. In the first incident, a suicide bomber driving a three-wheeled rickshaw detonated his explosives near a crowd who were holding a picnic for the Afghan New Year in Gereshk district of Helmand province, the provincial governor's spokesman said. “The target was an Afghan Army vehicle. The first reports are that 10 civilians have been killed and seven more wounded,” said spokesman Daoud Ahmadi, adding the bomb missed its target. A witness at the scene told Reuters by telephone he had been no more than 50 meters away from the blast. Separately, in Khost province in the southeast of the country, a roadside bomb killed two Afghan civilians and wounded four, a senior police chief said. “A civilian car hit a roadside bomb on the outskirts of Khost city. Two civilians were killed and four wounded,” acting provincial police chief Mohammad Yaqoub Mandozai said. During celebrations in Mazar-i-Sharif marking the Afghan New Year, Vice President Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who fought the Soviets and commanded forces that overthrow the Taliban in 2001, said a “peace jirga” planned for late April or early May would try to chart a way to reconcile with government opponents. “The government will try to find a peaceful life for those Afghans who are unhappy,” Fahim said without mentioning the Taliban by name. “God willing, by the help of the people, we will have a successful, historic jirga.”
