(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-06 21:29

KABUL, Afghanistan - Two bombs targeted a group of lawmakers in northern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 64 people, including five members of parliament, in the deadliest attack in the country since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, officials said.

Afghan and Dutch soldiers walk through a marijuana field during a patrol in a village in Baluchi pass in Uruzgan province November 5, 2007. [Agencies]

The bombs exploded outside a sugar factory in the northern province of Baghlan as the lawmakers were about to enter. The twin blasts struck children, elders and government officials who had gathered to greet the visiting delegation of 18 lawmakers from the lower house, officials said.

At least 64 people were killed, said a government minister who asked not to be identified because he was releasing information not yet made official. At least five members of parliament were among those killed, he said.

Shukria Barakzai, a lawmaker, said 18 of the 249 lower house parliamentarians had traveled to Baghlan province, and that 13 were dead or "in danger."

Baghlan lies about 95 miles north of Kabul.

If the death toll is confirmed, the attack would be the deadliest in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion. Taliban bombers have killed regional governors in the past, but never have militants killed so many high-ranking officials in one attack.

In June, a bomb tore through a bus carrying police instructors in Kabul, killing 35 people.

Kamin Khan, a police official, said people "everywhere" were dead and wounded, including police, children, lawmakers and officials from the Department of Agriculture.

Among the lawmakers killed was Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, a former Afghan commerce minister and a powerful member of the Northern Alliance, said the lawmaker's secretary, Ahmadi, who gave only one name. Kazimi also served as the spokesman of the largest opposition group in Afghanistan, the National Front.

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