KABUL, Afghanistan – A Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up among men washing in a bathhouse ahead of Friday prayers, killing 17, in an attack that showed militants can still largely strike at will in southern Afghanistan despite a NATO offensive.

Roadside bombs also killed three NATO service members in the south and east, while gunmen shot dead a police inspector in Kandahar’s provincial capital, bringing the day’s death toll to 21. Authorities said they suspect the Taliban assassinated the police inspector.

The day’s violence underscored the dangers in southern Afghanistan – and in particular Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban. Some of the fiercest fighting in the nearly 10-year war has taken place in the south, where international forces, bolstered by the addition of 30,000 U.S. troops over the summer, are battling to disrupt the insurgents’ network.

The bathhouse bombing in the Kandahar province town of Spin Boldak, just across the border from Pakistan, was the deadliest single attack in Afghanistan in more than a month.