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Military

Suicide Bomber Kills 9 Afghan Children, 2 US Troops

The children of Afghanistan, 2010.
U.S. Army
The children of Afghanistan, 2010.

Nine Afghan children walking home from school and two U.S. troops were killed Monday by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle in Paktia province, Afghanistan.

The Associated Press reports the suicide bomber's target was a U.S. military delegation attending a security briefing...

...but children were the main victims. A local school had just let pupils, between 10 and 16 years old, out for the day. Nine students were killed along with a local Afghan policeman... Many of the children's bodies were burned beyond recognition.

The names of the U.S. service members killed in the attack have not yet been released.

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The attack is part of the Taliban's spring offense of violence, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The United Nations condemned the attack. Jan Kubis, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative in Afghanistan, responded:

"These attacks resulted in a high number of civilian casualties, with minimal impact on their purported military targets — any such violence is unacceptable, but especially when it involves civilians and even more so when it involves children.

"Any attacks which deliberately take place near a school can only be condemned for the heinous attacks that they are."