Afghanistan: Car bomb attack kills seven in Kandahar
US soldiers inspect the site of a suicide attack near the entrance to Kandahar international airport on January 19, 2012.
A car bomb in the southern Afghanistan city of Kandahar has killed at least seven people and wounded 19.
Five police officers and two civilians died in the attack, which went off in a parking lot outside a police building on Sunday, Reuters reported.
According to the Associated Press, windows in nearby buildings were shattered in the blast. The explosives were reportedly hidden in a parked vehicle and detonated remotely.
NATO forces helped to secure the area as Afghan police carried the wounded to ambulances. Corpses were loaded into a pickup truck.
More from GlobalPost: Panetta – US combat forces in Afghanistan to step back by 2013
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, the BBC reported. Kandahar is southern Afghanistan’s biggest city, and Kandahar Province has long been considered the spiritual homeland of the Taliban.
On Saturday, the UN published figures reporting that 2011 was the deadliest year on record for civilians in the Afghan war, with 3,021 killed due to an increase in suicide attacks and roadside bombs. 2,790 civilians were killed in 2010, GlobalPost reported.
More from GlobalPost: More than 3,000 civilians killed in Afghanistan war last year – UN
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