Two suicide bombers were killed in Afghanistan on Tuesday when one of their bombs went off prematurely, a police official said.
The pair were killed while walking along a road on the outskirts of the southern city of Kandahar, which has been hit by a wave of violence in recent months, including suicide attacks on foreign troops.
“We’ve established that the two were suicide attackers and were killed prematurely by their own bombs because of some technical fault,” provincial police chief Maalik Wayezi told reporters.
He said he did not know the identity of the two or their target, but he suspected they were members of the Taliban or Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.
The Taliban have been battling foreign troops and the Western-backed government since their ouster at the hands of U.S. and Afghan opposition forces in late 2001.
Violence has intensified in recent months just as the United States is hoping to trim its force of about 19,000 troops in Afghanistan by several thousand, and as NATO members are sending about 6,000 more.
Britain, the Netherlands and Canada are sending troops to the volatile Afghan south, where the Taliban and allied militants are most active, to take over more responsibilities from U.S. forces.
