By Agencies

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Two bomb blasts apparently targeting Shia Muslim shrines as hundreds of people gathered to mark the day of Ashoura have killed at least 60 people and injured scores more, according to Afghan police and media reports.

At least 56 people were killed by a suicide bomber who detonated explosives at the gate of the Abu-Ul Fazil shrine in the capital Kabul on Tuesday, many of them children, the AFP news agency reported.

'Huge explosion'
 
"I was there watching people mourning when there was suddenly a huge explosion," witness Ahmad Fawad said.

"Some people around me fell down injurefd. I wasn't hurt, so I got up and started running. It was horrible," he said.

In a separate attack, a bicycle bomb near a mosque in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif killed four worshippers, a district police chief said.
 
The Taliban condemned the bomb attacks in Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif as the brutal work of "enemies", a spokesperson for the armed group said.
 
"Very sadly we heard that there were explosions in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif, where people were killed by the enemy's un-Islamic and inhuman activity," Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement published on their website.
 
Kabul has been targeted by a series of bold attacks in recent months; include assaults on the US embassy, a major hotel and the offices of the British Council.
 
The blasts occurred as Shias gathered to carry out religious rituals to mark one of the most significant days in their calendar.

Hopes for progress
 
Ashoura, a public holiday in Afghanistan, is marked by Muslims as a whole, but for Shia Muslims it is a major religious festival which commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

Shias were banned from marking Ashoura in public under the Taliban. This year, there are more Ashoura monuments around the city than in recent years, including black shrines and flags.
 
Meanwhile, a bomb placed in a motorcycle exploded in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Tuesday afternoon, injuring three civilians, a spokesmfan for the provincial governor said.

The site of the Kandahar blast was not near any mosque or shrine.
 
The attacks came shortly after a major conference on Afghanistan's future, held in the German city of Bonn, 10 years after talks there which put in place an interim government after US-led troops toppled the Taliban.

However, Pakistan and the Taliban - both seen as pivotal to any end to the fighting in Afghanistan - decided to stay away from the talks, undermining already modest hopes for real progress.