KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A boy possibly as young as 10 was used in a suicide-bomb attack against a joint Canadian and Afghan army patrol in Afghanistan on Friday.
Two Canadian soldiers and two Afghan soldiers were wounded in the attack about 40 kilometres from Kandahar city, the military said.
The boy, described by witnesses as around 10 years old, walked up to the army patrol.
"He is believed to have been wearing a suicide vest," said Capt. Amber Bineau, a spokeswoman for the Canadian army battle group in Kandahar.
She condemned the attack and described it as a "last ditch-attempt" by militants to disrupt the progress of Afghan and NATO forces in establishing security in the country.
"These types of attacks demonstrate a weakness in the insurgency and do not impede the resolve of those who work to make Kandahar province a safe and stable environment," Bineau said in a statement.
The Canadian military released no further information on the nature of the attack, but Afghan police officials speculated that the bomb carried by the child might have been remotely activated.
If true, it would represent a disturbing turn in the Taliban's campaign of suicide bombings, which has been going on for more than two years.
Earlier this year in Iraq, two mentally handicapped women strapped with remote-control explosives were believed used as unwitting suicide bombers. The blasts, 20 minutes apart, killed 73 people in Baghdad in February. U.S. officials said it was the work of the extremist group al-Qaida in Iraq.
Bineau said the two Canadians wounded in Friday's attack were evacuated by helicopter to Kandahar Airfield and able to "walk into the medical facility on their own."
Names of wounded Canadians are normally not released, but Bineau said the two soldiers would notify their families.
The four soldiers were on patrol around 10 a.m. local time in the village of Nalgham, in Zhari district, when the bomber struck.
The attack came just over a week after a Canadian soldier was killed while on foot patrol in the Pashmul region outside Kandahar city.
Cpl. Michael Starker, a Calgary paramedic, was shot and killed May 6. His funeral was in Calgary on Friday. Another Canadian was injured in the incident but is expected to recover.
Friday's blast was the second suicide bombing this week in Afghanistan.
An attacker, disguised as a woman and wearing a burka, blew himself up Wednesday outside a police station in the small southwestern province of Farah. That blast killed 12 people and wounded 27 others.
Provincial Gov. Rohul Amin said the bomber was a woman. But the Taliban, which claimed responsibility, identified the attacker as a man named Mullah Khalid who was wearing the burka as a disguise.
-- The Canadian Press
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