Afghan bombing death toll at 41

Afghan officials said Wednesday that 41 people, mostly civilians, had been killed in two devastating attacks blamed on the Taliban.

The number of civilians killed or wounded in Afghanistan dropped 15 per cent in the half or 2012.

In the worst attack for months, three suicide bombers on Tuesday killed 30 people in Zaranj, the capital of Afghanistan's remote southwestern Nimroz province on the border with Iran.

"The latest toll that I have from all hospitals today: 30 people are dead," provincial public health director, Noor Mohammad Sherzad told AFP. He said 130 other people, mostly civilians, were wounded.

Authorities earlier said 36 people had died in the attack.

The death toll from another bomb Tuesday planted on a motorcycle in Kunduz province in the north rose to 11 overnight, after a man died from his injuries, police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hossaini told AFP.

In another, previously unreported attack on Tuesday, four tribal chieftains were killed in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, the local administration said.

The men were travelling in Kajaki district when their van struck a roadside bomb, the weapon of choice for Taliban and other insurgents.