AFGHAN police marked their country’s official transition to full sovereignty today after a 13-year US-led military occupation by investigating an army rocket strike on a wedding party that killed at least 28 people.

Helmand deputy provincial commander Bacha Gull said that police were looking into how soldiers came to fire a rocket onto a house where a wedding was being celebrated.

The rocket appeared to have been fired from an army checkpoint near the house in Sangin district as guests waited for the bride to arrive, he said.

Police were “keeping an eye” on two army checkpoints to determine whether the soldiers manning them had been engaged in a firefight with Taliban insurgents at the time or whether they fired the rockets arbitrarily.

Mr Gull said that funerals, which are usually held within 24 hours of a death, had been delayed to enable investigators to determine the cause of the rocket strike, which also wounded 51 people.