A massive roadside bomb has killed at least 18 people on their way to a wedding in northern Afghanistan.
At least 15 others have been wounded in what a BBC correspondent called one of the worst such attacks in the country for some time.
A minibus was carrying men, women and children to the wedding in the Dawlatabad district of Balkh province when it was struck by the bomb.
It is not clear whether they were the intended target.
No-one has admitted carrying out the attack, which happened at 06:00 local time.
"All the victims were civilians and mostly they were women and children," provincial police spokesman Shir Jan Durrani told the AFP news agency.
Officials warned that the number of dead could increase.
Dawood Rustaie, a surgeon treating the wounded at a hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh, said most were in a critical condition.
"Some of them [are] slightly wounded, but some others have severe injuries and need prolonged treatment," said Mr Rustaie.
Northern Afghanistan has generally been one of the safest parts of the country since the US-led invasion in 2001, says the BBC's Andrew North in Kabul.
But Balkh has seen an increase in Taliban activity in recent years, which Nato forces - despite their extra numbers - have been unable to suppress.
A UN report in August said civilian casualties had actually fallen for the first time in five years in Afghanistan - suggesting both sides in the war are becoming increasingly sensitive to the impact of civilian deaths.
But the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, which published the report, said it was concerned that the number of civilian deaths and injuries "remains at a high level".
There are no exact figures for the number of civilians killed since the war began in 2001, but most estimates calculate a minimum of 20,000 civilian deaths.
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