By Ismail Sameem ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Afghans mourned the more than 100 victims of a suspected suicide bombing in the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, a day after one of the country's single deadliest attacks. The largest mourning ceremony on Monday was held at a mosque in Arghandab for a top provincial police officer, Abdul Hakim, killed along with 32 of his colleagues in the attack on spectators at a dog fight, said Ahmad Agha, a deputy for Hakim. Kandahar's governor Assadullah Kahlid said on Monday the death toll had risen to more than 100, with more 100 wounded. Dozens of victims were buried side-by-side. Khalid accused the Taliban of the attack, but the insurgents denied responsibility. The attack came at a time when some Western politicians have called for a stronger resolve to tackle the insurgency to stop Afghanistan sliding back into anarchy. Despite the presence of more than 50,000 foreign troops led by NATO and the U.S. military, as well as some 140,000 Afghan troops, the militants have made a comeback in the past two years, and more than 11,000 people have been killed in violence. Sunday's attack happened as a crowd of people were watching dog fights in Arghandab, on the western outskirts of Kandahar city. Family members of those killed, who included six children, wept as they buried their kin. "Look how many children have been orphaned and how many women have been widowed by this," Zia-Ul Haq, a religious scholar, told a crowd of mourners. "This is un-Islamic." As part of their campaign to drive out the foreign troops and topple Afghanistan's government, the al Qaeda-backed Taliban largely rely on suicide raids and roadside bomb attacks. Civilians usually become prey of such attacks. But several mourners said the Taliban, ousted from power in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, were not behind the attack. They accused foreign forces in Afghanistan of orchestrating it to defame the Taliban. "I doubt the Taliban would do such a thing," Tooryalai told a Reuters reporter during a mourning ceremony in Arghandab. "This was the work of foreigners in order to give a bad name to the Taliban and to justify their presence here in Afghanistan by saying 'security is bad and we can't leave'," he said. Others nearby nodded in agreement. (Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
An Afghan policeman looks at photographs he found at a blast site in Kandahar province February 17, 2008. A suspected suicide bomb attack at a picnic spot in the southern Afghan ...
