Suicide bomber kills 17 in Afghan market

Seventeen people were killed and 47 wounded when a bomb explosion ripped through a crowded market in southern Afghanistan today, a hospital official said.

A suicide bomber, carrying explosives, walked into the market opposite a police station in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern Helmand province, and blew himself up, said Ghulam Muheddin, the provincial governor’s spokesman.

Hanif Khan, a local hospital official, said the blast killed 17 people and wounded 47, six critically.

Among the dead were the owner of the market, a former Lashkar Gah police chief, his son and a nephew, said Hayatullah Khan, a security guard at the scene.