Afghanistan's hardline vice-president has expressed hope that an upcoming national conference would lay the foundation for peace with insurgents, as a dozen civilians died in separate bombings in frontline provinces.
During celebrations marking Afghan New Year, Vice-President Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who fought the Soviets and commanded forces that overthrew the Taliban in 2001, said yesterday that a "peace jirga" planned for late April or early May would try to chart a way to reconcile with government opponents.
Fahim's support would be crucial to efforts by President Hamid Karzai to reach a political settlement with Taliban leaders to end the war, now in its ninth year. Fahim is an ethnic Tajik and former defense minister. Karzai and the Taliban leadership are ethnic Pashtuns.
Of the civilian deaths, at least 10 people picnicking by a stream in southern Afghanistan were killed in a suicide bomb attack, police and officials said.
A suicide bomber on a three-wheeled motorcycle had apparently been trying to blow up an Afghan army convoy, but missed his target, a spokesman for the government of Helmand province said.
"It was a suicide bomber who detonated a motorcycle as an Afghan National Army vehicle was passing by," Daud Ahmadi, spokesman for the Helmand provincial government, said. "The blast killed 10 civilians and injured seven others," he said, adding that it took place around 1.45pm (0915 GMT) in the Gereshk district of Helmand.