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KABUL, Afghanistan — The groom and 17 of the guests at a rural Kandahar wedding party attacked by a suicide bomber on Wednesday night were members of an anti-Taliban guard organization encouraged initially by American Special Operations forces, and the bomber’s goal appeared to be to undermine support for the group, elders and government officials in the area said Thursday.

The governor of Kandahar Province decried the attack at a news conference.

“People from all walks of life are participating in a wedding: they are teachers, they are farmers, they are scholars, they are children,” said the governor, Tooryalai Wesa. “It’s not legal to kill large numbers of innocent people,” he said.

Forty wedding guests were killed and 87 were wounded, according to the governor’s office.

The commander of the group, known as an arbeki, a traditional form of a village defense force, said the American forces had supported him at the beginning but then had backed away and never delivered ammunition or other promised support. His force is homegrown and home-financed, said the commander, Mohammed Nabi Kako.

Despite the bombing, in which 12 of his men died, Mr. Kako spoke confidently of his ability to hearten his forces and repel future insurgent attacks.

“We will work harder against the Taliban in the future,” Mr. Kako said. “Our morale is high, and our people’s morale is even higher.”

“The Americans, they promised me that ‘if you find the men, we will provide weapons and everything you need, vehicles, ammunition, radios,’ then nothing happened. When I asked why, they said, ‘You should go to your government and your government will support you.’

“So we went to our government and they said, ‘You are not registered.’ So no one gave us even a single bullet,” he said.

The government of President Hamid Karzai has been skeptical of the groups, which it fears will develop local bases of power outside of government control. However, people in areas lacking Afghan security forces have had little choice but to fend for themselves, and about nine months ago American Special Operations forces started encouraging the formation of a handful of local groups in vulnerable places around the country. One was the group in Nagahan, where the attack on the wedding party took place.

“This is a tragedy. The village as a whole chose peace and to renounce violence and stand against the Taliban, and this senseless act has taken innocent lives,” said Col. Edward T. Nye, a spokesman for Special Operations forces in Afghanistan.

Colonel Nye would not comment on the local commander’s remarks about American aid, but he said “this is not going to dissuade us or drive us away, and I’m sure we’re going to continue to support the people of the area and side with them.”

Elders in the area said they believed that the suicide bomber’s intent was to erode confidence in the group and to make the area more vulnerable to insurgent infiltration.

“The local militia were quite effective and helpful and were supported by the civilian population, they were not letting Taliban come to their area,” said Haji Shah Aka, an elder from Nagahan.

“They are trying to terrify the people who want to protect their areas. It was a concrete message from the Taliban to the residents of Nagahan not to help the government and not to secure their area,” he said.

The Taliban denied responsibility for the bombing that, because it killed mostly civilians, went against their efforts to soften their image and reach out to civilians. The Taliban spokesman for southern Afghanistan sent text messages to local reporters denying any involvement and blaming NATO forces for the bombing. In Paktia Province in eastern Afghanistan, 2,000 local leaders gathered in a district just a ridge away from the Pakistan border to endorse the recommendations of a peace conference held last week in Kabul. The crowd, heavily protected by the local police and NATO helicopters, would most likely have been far larger had the local Taliban not threatened to disrupt it, local leaders said.

Most of the speakers at the meeting condemned what they called Pakistan’s intervention in Afghan affairs. Those in attendance called on the government to intensify its efforts to persuade Pakistan to stay out of Afghan affairs, said Afghan reporters who attended the gathering.

Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar. An Afghan employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Khost, Afghanistan.