Four children were among the dead and at least 42 people were wounded, said Muhbobullah Sayedi and Hamdullah Danishi, provincial officials.
A unemployment rate of 35 percent and an average military salary of $170 a month is enough to persuade volunteers, when the average Afghan wage is about $60 to $100 a month.
Yesterday’s attack was the second suicide bombing in five days in Kunduz, where Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and numerous other militant groups, including one from neighboring Uzbekistan, have increased their presence. Violence in recent months has shifted away from Afghanistan’s south, where the US-led coalition has poured thousands more troops.
Fatima Aziz, a parliamentarian for Kunduz, said the attacks are intended to expose the weakness of the Afghan forces and to dissuade potential army volunteers. US General David Petraeus, the top commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, has said thousands more Afghan troops must be recruited and trained ahead of the eventual withdrawal of NATO troops.
The United States and Afghanistan began negotiations yesterday over long-term security arrangements expected to guide international cooperation after 2014, when most coalition combat troops are scheduled to leave, said a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai.
The attacker walked up to the center before detonating his explosives vest, Danish said. No group immediately claimed responsibility; the Taliban said it carried out the bombing against the center in December, which killed eight soldiers and policemen.
Karzai condemned the bombing and vowed retribution against those responsible.
In his first appearance in Washington since taking over as the top war commander in Afghanistan, Petraeus yesterday gave President Obama a mostly upbeat assessment of military progress that should allow the United States to begin withdrawing forces this summer, despite predictions that the wounded Taliban insurgency will mount an especially bloody fight this spring.
No one is calling it the Taliban’s last stand, but US officials say this is the year that the insurgency will be tamed on the battlefield and at the bargaining table.
