Nadahan wedding bombing

The explosion occurred in a men-only area of the wedding party[3] where guests were eating.[4] The female guests were in another building.[4] A white-clothed boy under 13 walked in and approached within 15 feet (4.6 m) of the dinner tables before fiddling with the bomb attached to his vest.[5] There followed a "ball of fire and smoke".[4] Some of those killed were children.[3] The groom was wounded[3] and his brother killed.[5]

At least three Afghan police officers were at the wedding.[4] Some suggested the attack was intended for 17 of the guests who were members of an anti-Taliban guard group, which had once been encouraged by United States Special Operations Forces before they gave up on it.[6] Blood donations were requested via television.[3] The coffins of the dead were lined adjacent to the mortuary.[3]

A group of investigators was sent to the village by Afghanistan's Interior Ministry.[5]

NATO issued a statement saying none of their soldiers were behind it.[4] The Taliban were instead blamed by the NATO troops; however, the Taliban stated that they were not responsible for the attack,[3] even condemning it as "a brutal act".[3] Deputy commander of NATO forces, Lt. Gen. Nick Parker, described it as "ruthless violence" and claimed these were "sickening and indiscriminate tactics to try to intimidate the citizens of Afghanistan".[4]

A military spokesperson representing the United States said the attack had not been an airstrike carried out by his country.[4] He dismissed speculation to the contrary as "Taliban misinformation".[4]

President Hamid Karzai stated his condemnation and requested "a thorough investigation".[4] Karzai, in the presence of the United Kingdom's Prime Minister David Cameron (who was visiting Afghanistan for the first official time), labelled it "a crime of massive inhuman proportions".[7]

Tooryalai Wesa, governor of Kandahar Province, spoke at a news conference in Nadahan after the attack and demonstrated a piece of metal he had found which he said resembled part of a suicide bomb.[4]

United Nations Special Representative for Afghanistan Staffan de Mistura said it was an "outrageous act" and that "to specifically target people who were gathering at a moment of happiness to celebrate a wedding shows a total disregard for civilian life".[5]