Afghan police are hunting for those behind a suicide attack on a mosque that killed 20 people, as suspicion fell on Al-Qaeda. A suicide bomber detonated explosives in a crowded mosque in the southern city of Kandahar on Wednesday as mourners gathered to pay respects to an assassinated anti-Taliban cleric. Among those killed was the chief of police from the capital, Kabul. Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said the dead bomber was a foreign national, most probably Arab. He declined to speculate what group might be responsible saying an investigation was underway. But he said an increase in attacks, including bombs in the capital, showed the enemies of Afghanistan were getting desperate. "The enemies of peace and stability have been defeated in the front line of war and now they're focusing on soft targets, charity organizations, aid workers and religious scholars," he said.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, Afghanistan's first suicide blast at a mosque and the most serious in a recent spate of violence. The governor of Kandahar Province, Gul Agha Sherzai, said Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda was responsible. Asked what proof he had, he said the dead bomber appeared to be an Arab.