Afghanistan ? A suicide attack ripped through a wedding party in full swing in the Taliban’s heartland in southern Afghanistan late Wednesday, killing 40 people and wounding dozens more, officials said.

The exact details of the assault in Kandahar province and the motive were not immediately clear, though insurgents often target civilian government officials and police in areas under their control and use violence on civilians to intimidate them. A day earlier, the Taliban hanged a seven-year-old boy in public in Helmand province for alleged spying, a local official said.