KABUL, Dec 7: Nineteen civilians were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province on Wednesday, taking the death toll from just 24 hours of bloodshed to 78.

That came as funerals took place for 59 people killed in unprecedented bomb attacks on Ashura gatherings in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif a day earlier.

Giving details of the Helmand bombing, provincial security force commander Mohammad Ismail said 19 people, including seven women and five children, were killed. The women were all from the same family.

Parts of Helmand remain highly unstable although Lashkar Gah was brought under the overall control of US-led Afghan forces in July and three other districts are due to shift from Nato to Afghan security control within weeks.

Investigators are now trying to find out who was behind Tuesday’s suicide attack on a shrine in Kabul, which killed 55, and a bomb blast in Mazar-i-Sharif that killed four mourners.

The Taliban denied responsibility.

A caller who identified himself as a spokesman for Lashkar-i-Jhangvi al-Alami claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack, in a telephone call to a reporter hours after the blast.

The caller, who identified himself as Abu Bakar Mansoor, said the “Shia community was the target”.

Former militants once linked with the group said they did not recognise his (Mansoor’s) name, and the claim could not be independently verified.

The twin blasts have prompted fears that Afghanistan could see the sort of sectarian violence that widened religious differences in Iraq.

US-backed President Hamid Karzai scrapped a planned trip to Britain, flying back to Afghanistan for an emergency meeting with security chiefs after attending Monday’s Bonn conference on his country’s future.

In Kabul, many of those killed in the shrine bombing were buried amid emotional scenes on Wednesday. Several hundred people marched through the west of the city chanting ‘God is great’ with two of the bodies, a source said.

“We want the Afghan government, international community and those who are involved in Afghanistan’s affairs to reveal those who were behind the attack,” Yazdan Parast, a citizen, said at the funeral.

Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai said that while they had been prepared for violence, the funerals had passed off peacefully so far.

The US embassy confirmed that an American citizen was among those killed in the Kabul attack but gave no details.

Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry, said the attack was the work of “the Taliban and their associates”, adding that no one else carried out such suicide attacks in Afghanistan.

An Afghan security official speaking on condition of anonymity said the bomber was from Kurram district in Pakistan’s border region and was connected to the proscribed Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, which is believed to be linked to the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi group.

Afghans traditionally blame Pakistanis for fuelling much of the violence in their country.

A western security official also suggested Pakistani involvement but stressed it was not clear whether this was ‘institutional’, referring to reported links between militants and Pakistani intelligence.

“We’re particularly looking at TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) although at the moment we don’t have any proof,” he said. —Agencies