Mosque bomb kills 20, including Afghan governor

A bomb exploded in a mosque where governor of Afghanistan's Kunduz province was attending Friday prayers.

KUNDUZ: A bomb tore through an Afghan mosque killing an outspoken governor and 19 other people on Friday in the latest attack reflecting growing violence in the north of the country.

Mohammad Omar, who was governor of Kunduz province, one of the parts of northern Afghanistan most troubled by Taliban insurgents, was killed by a bomb in the town of Taluqan.

"We have 20 people martyred and 15 others injured. The dead include the governor," interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP, updating an initial death toll of 15 given by police.

Authorities were investigating whether the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber or a planted device, the spokesman said.

Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, suspicion fell on groups fighting the Western-backed Afghan government for the last nine years.

Omar had repeatedly warned that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were expanding in Kunduz and had called for security reinforcements.

"A number of our countrymen have been killed and injured," said Sayed Mohammad Tawhidi, spokesman for the government in Takhar province, Omar's home region and the place where the attack took place

"The governor of Kunduz, Mr Mohammad Omar, was unfortunately among the dead," he told AFP, unable to give an exact death toll.

Mohammad Hassan Baseej, a doctor at the local hospital, said 33 people were admitted with injuries after the attack.

Violence has increased in recent years in the north, which was once considered relatively peaceful compared to Taliban flashpoints in the east and south of the country.

More than 152,000 US-led Nato troops are deployed in Afghanistan, focused primarily on the south, trying to reverse the Taliban insurrection and shore up the government of President Hamid Karzai.