KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) – A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded market Monday, killing 17 people and wounding 47 in the latest violence to hit insurgency-wracked southern Afghanistan.

The blast wrecked shop fronts and left body parts and blood-soaked turbans amid shattered glass in the bazaar of Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern Helmand province, said Hayatullah Khan, a security guard.

A purported Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, and in a rare move, expressed sadness over the civilian casualties.

The bomber, carrying explosives, walked into the crowded market opposite a police station and blew himself up, said Ghulam Muheddin, the provincial governor’s spokesman.

At least 17 people were killed and 47 wounded, six critically, said Hanif Khan, a local hospital official. Fifteen children were among the wounded, Muheddin said.

It was the second major suicide attack to exact civilian casualties in southern Afghanistan this month, where insurgents are battling NATO-led and Afghan forces trying to extend the weak control of the government of President Hamid Karzai. It’s Afghanistan’s bloodiest phase since the ouster of the hardline regime in late 2001 for hosting Osama bin Laden.

On Aug. 4, a suicide car bomber apparently targeting Canadian NATO forces killed 21 civilians and wounded 13 others in the town of Panjwayi in neighboring Kandahar province.

Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said Monday’s bombing was not a suicide attack but a remote-controlled bomb that had targeted a former Lashkar Gah police chief because he had served under the pro-communist government during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s. The man, who runs the bazaar, and his son were among those killed.

“We are very sad about the civilian casualties,” Ahmadi said in a phone call from an undisclosed location to an Associated Press reporter in Kandahar. “We only wanted to kill this former police chief.”

Ahmadi often calls journalists to claim responsibility for attacks. His exact ties to the Taliban leadership are unclear.

More than 1,600 people, mostly militants, have died in the past four months, according to an AP tally of reports by U.S., NATO and Afghan officials.

On Sunday, insurgent attacks in Helmand killed a British soldier, while 10 suspected Taliban militants died when police repelled an attack on a government compound in the same volatile province.

Separately, a NATO soldier and six Afghan troops were wounded when mortars hit their base in Kandahar province, a NATO statement said. It said three women were killed when mortar rounds landed in a nearby village.

Also Sunday, four rockets slammed into western Kabul, one landing near a district police station and another damaging a house, said district police chief Gen. Zalmai Oryakail. No injuries were reported.