24 killed in twin Afghan suicide bombings

"Twenty people were killed and around 20 others were wounded after a suicide bomber on a motorcycle detonated himself half an hour ago in Spin Boldak town bazaar," said Asadullah Khalid, governor of Kandahar province.

The bombing in Spin Boldak, a border crossing with Pakistan, came hours after a suspected Taliban suicide car bombing in Kandahar city killed three soldiers and a civilian.

The attack in the troubled southern city of Kandahar, a former hotbed of the ousted Taliban regime, came one day after another car bomb in the same city claimed the lives of a senior Canadian diplomat and two Afghans.

Foreign Affairs Political Director Glyn Berry "was killed in a terrorist attack on a PRT (provincial reconstruction team) convoy," said Peter Harder, deputy minister of Canada's foreign affairs.

Berry, who previously worked in Canada's Pakistan High Commission, in Washington and at the United Nations in New York, was the political director and senior civilian member of Canada's PRT in southern Afghanistan, he added.

"An explosives-laden vehicle rammed into an Afghan National Army (ANA) convoy which martyred three ANA soldiers and wounded five ANA soldiers," defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP.

"It was a suicide attack," he said, adding that he had no information on civilian casualties.

Captain Mohibul Rehman of the ANA also confirmed the attack, which happened at around 2:55pm (1025 GMT).

"A suicide bomber detonated himself close to an Afghan National Army vehicle in the city which took (the) lives of three ANA soldiers and wounded another four soldiers," he said.