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Afghan Guards Caused More Harm Than Bomb, U.N. Finds

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The Associated Press

Published: November 18, 2007

BAGHLANI-JADID, Afghanistan - Up to two-thirds of the 77 people killed and 100 wounded in a suicide bombing Nov. 6 were hit by bullets from visiting lawmakers' panicked bodyguards, who fired on a crowd of mostly schoolchildren for up to five minutes, a preliminary U.N. report says.

Afghanistan's Interior Ministry says only a "small number" of the victims were hit by gunfire, but an Afghan official in Baghlan province said bodyguards were "raining bullets" on the crowd.

The suicide bomb contained ball bearings, the Interior Ministry said, which may have caused wounds that look like bullet holes.

An Afghan doctor who treated patients after the blast, meanwhile, said a high-ranking government official told him not to publicly reveal the number of gunfire victims, suggesting a possible government cover-up.

Separate teams of U.N. investigators have uncovered conflicting information about the number of people hit by gunfire and are trying to reconcile the differences, according to two Western officials who have seen the reports. The two spoke on condition they not be identified talking about preliminary findings.

At least one of those reports - based on interviews with witnesses and medical authorities and a reconstruction of the bomb scene - says that of the roughly 77 people killed and 100 wounded, up to two-thirds were hit by the three to five minutes of gunfire the bodyguards fired into the crowd, one official said.

Among the dead were 61 students and five teachers, said Education Ministry adviser Hamid Almi. Six members of parliament and five bodyguards also died.

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