KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide assailant set off a automobile brimful with explosives Thursday outside a embankment at a sprawling base for U.S. and NATO operations, murdering seven civilians in a second suicide bombing in as many days in southern Afghanistan, officials said.

Separately, Afghan authorities reported Thursday that avalanches have killed at least twenty-nine people in the country’s alpine northeast.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the afternoon attack at a swarming opening to Kandahar Air Field, claiming they were targeting a NATO convoy.

Two witnesses told The Associated Press that they think the suicide automobile bomber was perplexing to strike U.S. forces given he detonated his explosives usually as two pickup trucks, which they contend are mostly used by American special forces, were withdrawal the base.

The bloc pronounced no NATO troops were killed. It does not divulge information about harmed troops.

Taliban orator Qari Yousef pronounced that NATO forces open glow after the bombing, and that they killed 3 of the seven civilians who died.

The bloc denied this, observant there was no fighting after the blast.

“There was no follow-on attacks and no intrusion to operations” at the base, the bloc said.

Earlier, officials reported that the suicide bomber was on foot near the gate, though the Afghan Ministry of Interior after pronounced the assailant was pushing a Toyota Corolla.

Zalmai Ayubi, the orator for the Kandahar provincial governor, pronounced two children were in between the seven civilians killed. He pronounced eight other civilians, together with two young kids and a single woman, were harmed in the explosion.

Gates to the incomparable U.S. bases in Afghanistan mostly are swarming with trucks watchful to broach products and and services, and internal Afghans starting to or entrance behind from jobs on the compounds.

Safiullah, a 40-year-old fuel tank motorist from adjacent Zabul province, was watchful his spin to come in the base when the blast occurred.

“There was dirt and fume everywhere,” pronounced Safiullah, who uses usually a single name. “I got down on my knees. When the fume lifted, I changed closer. I saw two young kids dead at the side of the road.”

At the time of the explosion, two pickup trucks were withdrawal the base, he said. He pronounced he remembered that given he and an additional man were talking at the time about how U.S. special forces infrequently use that kind of truck.

The blast cracked the window of a cab driven by Sabiullah Khan, was at the embankment watchful for customers.

“I put my conduct down in my car,” he said. “For 3 or four mins I was afraid. I was reciting the difference of the Quran,” the Muslim holy book. “When the fume privileged and I knew I was OK, I proposed seeking outside. People were cheering for help. I saw a single automobile on fire. The Afghan armed forces were using and receiving out the wounded.”

He pronounced that when he got out of his taxi, he also saw the two pickup trucks.

“Nobody was in them, though from the condition of the vehicle, I’m sure that if they were not killed, they were wounded,” he said.

On Wednesday, thirteen civilians, together with 3 Afghan policemen were killed when a suicide assailant blew himself up in a concert in adjacent Helmand Province.

The Helmand governor’s office pronounced twenty-two others were bleeding in the blast in Kajaki district.

The bloc pronounced a little general infantry were killed and bleeding in the attack, though did not divulge details.

Late Wednesday, NATO reported that a single bloc guard had been killed in an blast in southern Afghanistan, though would not contend either the use part of died in the Kajaki bombing, or a little other incident.

U.S. Gen. John Allen, the tip commander in chief of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, cursed the Kajaki attack, observant it was justification that the Taliban insurgents had “declared undisguised war” on the Afghan people. He pronounced that such assault “will usually serve besiege the Taliban from the routine of assent negotiation.”

The U.S. has been operative to attorney talks in between the Taliban and President Hamid Karzai’s supervision to end the 10-year war. The insurgents not long ago pronounced they would open a domestic bureau in the Gulf state of Qatar to aspire to negotiations though would also go on fighting.

In northern Afghanistan, twenty-nine people have died in avalanches reported given Monday in Badakhshan province. according to the Afghan National Disaster Management Agency.

At least 40 more people have been harmed and rescuers were struggling to strech areas of Afghanistan’s alpine northeast that have been cut off by complicated snows.

Roads outward the provincial capital of Faizabad were shut off by at least 6 feet (2 meters) of snow, the group said.

Afghanistan’s oppressive winters and alpine turf in the north make avalanches a risk any year.

In Feb 2010, an avalanche killed at least 171 people near the Salang Pass, a vital track through the Hindu Kush plateau that connects the capital of Kabul to the north of the country.

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