At least 17 people have died in an explosion in a public bath house in Afghanistan.
Another 23 people were injured in the attack, which took place in the southern province of Kandahar near the Pakistan border.
Officials said a suicide bomber was behind the blast, which targeted a police commander inside the building.
The bath house was packed at the time with people getting ready for Friday prayers.
The attack is the deadliest attack so far in 2011 and comes after the end of the bloodiest year of a war that has now dragged on for more than nine years.
In 2010, a record 711 foreign troops were killed, according to monitoring website iCasualties.com, compared to 521 for 2009.
Afghan security forces have been hit even harder than foreign troops. A total of 1,292 Afghan police and 821 Afghan soldiers were killed in 2010, according to the Afghan government.
The United Nations has said 2,412 civilians were killed and 3,803 wounded between January and October last year, a 20% increase on 2009.
