JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Jan 6, (AFP): A suspected roadside bomb killed four children and injured dozens including nine foreign troops Wednesday, officials said, as a police officer who defected to the Taleban was captured.
In a day of violence that saw more than 60 people, including 13 school children, injured across the country, Afghan officials and NATO were at odds over the cause of a massive explosion in eastern Nangahar.
The blast happened at around 10:00 am (0530 GMT) in the Rodat district of the troubled province, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, the provincial governor’s spokesman, adding that the cause was a roadside bomb.
“One policeman was killed, four children were killed, and more than 40 are wounded,” he said.
“This was the action of the armed opposition,” he said, referring to Taleban-led militants who have a significant presence in the region.
An investigation was underway to determine the cause, he told AFP.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said however the blast was caused by unexploded munitions.
“Nine International Security Assistance Force service members were wounded in an explosion in the Rodat district of Nangarhar province this morning,” the ISAF statement said.
“The blast is believed to have been caused by the detonation of unexploded ordnance,” it added, without mention of child fatalities.
ISAF did not give the nationality of the wounded soldiers, though US forces are dominant in the region.
The Interior Ministry said earlier that 13 school children were among those wounded when a police vehicle drove over the bomb.

More than 110,000 foreign troops under US and NATO command are battling a virulent Taleban-led insurgency as the war drags into its ninth year.
Roadside bombs have become the scourge of the Afghan war, with one senior Western military intelligence officer saying they are responsible for up to 90 percent of foreign troop deaths, which last year surpassed 500.
The bombs are cheap and easy to make, usually with fertiliser and switches. They are planted on roads regularly used by military patrols and detonated by remote control, sometimes from up to two kilometres (one mile) away.
In the violence-prone province of Farah, Afghan security forces captured a former police officer who defected to the Taleban.
The renegade officer, Mohammad Qasim, deserted his post as police chief of a restive district in southwestern Farah early last year, taking with him some officers as well as uniforms, weapons and vehicles.

He and his men joined militants to fight Afghan and Western forces in Bala Blok district, Farah’s deputy governor Mohammad Younus Rasouli said.
When he was captured on Tuesday night Qasim “was wearing Afghan police uniform and using government weapons and (police) vehicles against the government,” Rasouli said.
Seven other men, most of them former police, were also arrested, he said.
Under a multi-billion dollar, internationally-backed programme Afghanistan is rebuilding its security forces, with numbers now around 100,000 for the army and 70,000 police.
The security forces have been fighting a Taleban-led insurgency side-by-side with foreign troops, amid hopes they will be able to take on the fight themselves within five years.
Despite a strict vetting process, some recruits have turned on their foreign colleagues, raising questions about the selection process and brief training.
On November 4, in the most recent incident, an Afghan policemen killed five British soldiers in the southern province of Helmand, one of the most violent regions of the country.