KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, 7 January 2004 — A bomb attached to a bicycle killed at least 15 people, most of them children, and injured dozens more in this southern city yesterday — a bloody reminder of the violence still sweeping Afghanistan two years after the fall of the Taleban.

Officials said the blast may have been intended for US troops who regularly patrol the road where the bomb went off, or for the provincial governor, whose motorcade was about to pass that way.

This reporter saw wrecked bicycles, blood and shattered glass from a passing truck strewn across the road in the east of the city, which was quickly sealed off by dozens of Afghan and US soldiers.

Police said eight children, ages 7-15, died at the scene, apparently among a crowd that had gathered after another explosion went off at the same spot a few minutes earlier.

“I was playing football when I heard the first bomb, and a lot of us rushed to see what happened. Then the second one went off,” said Saami Khan, 15, lying in a Kandahar hospital bed, his face gashed by shrapnel and his chest heavily bandaged.

More than 50 people were injured, and three children died in hospital, police and officials said.

Deputy Police Chief Salim Khan suggested the twin blasts may have been targeting soldiers from an Afghan military base just 100 meters away. “They were chasing a suspect when they second explosion occurred,” he said.

But Deputy Interior Minister Hilalludin Hilal said US troops or Kandahar Gov. Yusuf Pashtun were more likely targets. “They don’t care so much about Afghan troops,” he said.

A soldier at the scene, Amanullah Popolzai, said a man spotted running from the area was caught trying to hide in a nearby home.

“This was the work of the Taleban. The man looked like he was a Taleb fighter,” Popolzai said.

Khan said the arrested man had been taken to an Afghan military headquarters for interrogation.

Hilal identified the man as Abdullah and said another suspect called Mullah Malik was also detained.

He said Malik had earlier served a jail term for killing a moderate religious leader in the city.

In the capital, Kabul, President Hamid Karzai interrupted celebratory talks with convention delegates — who’d just ratified a new post-Taleban constitution — to condemn the attack as “barbarism.”

“These enemies of Afghanistan, who hide in the darkness to launch attacks on innocent civilians, must be eliminated, and they will be eliminated,” said Karzai’s spokesman, Jawid.