Suicide attack kills 17 in southern Afghanistan bathhouse

A suicide bomber blew up a bathhouse in a southern Afghan border town as men gathered to wash before Friday prayers, killing 17 and wounding 23 at around mid-day.

Among those killed was a police inspector in the bombing that took place in Spin Boldak near the Pakistani border, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) east of the provincial capital of Kandahar, according to spokesperson for the governor.

An additional 23 people were wounded, and officials said many of them were transported to Pakistan for treatment, he confirmed.

Just an hour later, gunmen shot dead a police inspector in the nearby city of Kandahar, according to local police said, while on the same day, NATO announced that three of its service members were killed in roadside bombings.

Claiming responsibility for the bathhouse blast, a Taliban spokesman in the south said the attack targeted the second-in-command of the border patrol in the area. Officials have not identified the dead inspector as the border patrol deputy.

President Hamid Karzai, whose government has been battling the Taliban while trying to bring them to the negotiating table, called the bombing a "brutal" and un-Islamic act.

"Those behind this attack should know once again that the blood of the Muslim people has been spilled. It will not have any other result," Karzai said. The US Embassy and NATO in Afghanistan also issued statements condemned the bombing, with the US describing it as a "callous terrorist act."

Many of the wounded — including three Pakistanis — were taken across the border to the town of Chaman for treatment. Two of the wounded Pakistanis worked at a barbershop near the bathhouse.