Afghan suicide blasts claim 7 lives

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Suicide bombers killed seven people, including a leading provincial official, in two attacks in and near mosques in Afghanistan on Thursday.

Many more were also injured in the bombings in a restive southern provincial seat and the capital of Kabul.

Police said a suicide bomber detonated an explosives vest he was wearing in a mosque in the Helmand province capital of Lashkar Gar, killing the province's deputy governor, Pir Mohammad, who was praying at the time.

Five other people were killed and 21 were injured in the strike.

The bomber was standing near to the deputy governor when the blast occurred.

In central Kabul, a civilian was killed and two people were wounded when a car bomb exploded near an Afghan army bus in the area of a mosque, a spokeswoman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force told CNN.

A suicide bomber detonated a car next to a bus packed with soldiers, but no Afghan National Army soldiers died in the assault.

The attacks came a day after the release of three key reports from officials in the United States which raised dire concerns about the state of the international mission to stabilize Afghanistan and rid the country of insurgents.

The reports called for more intensive military and economic commitments in the country and warned that Afghanistan risked becoming a "failed state" if such efforts were not made.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people in Kabul demanded the release of an Afghan journalist who was sentenced to death last week after he was found guilty of insulting Islam, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

The demonstrators from the small, secular Solidarity Party rallied in front of the United Nations office in support of 23-year old Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, who was sentenced by a three-judge panel in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif for distributing to journalism students a report he had printed off the Internet.

The article asked why Islam allows men to have four wives, but women cannot have multiple husbands.

International human rights groups have condemned the sentence, which Kaambakhsh has appealed, but Afghanistan's upper house of parliament welcomed the ruling and criticized "international interference" in the matter. E-mail to a friend

CNN's Samson Desta in Kabul contributed to this report

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All About Hamid Karzai • Afghanistan • Helmand Province • Kabul • Suicide Attacks