Afghan suicide bombers kill 27

A wave of up to 14 suicide bombers have killed at least 27 people and wounded dozens more in an Afghan city that had been largely peaceful in recent years.

The bombings in Nimroz province came during a campaign by Taliban insurgents and their allies to ratchet up attacks as international troops hand over security to Afghan forces.

Not all of the attackers were able to detonate their explosives, and police killed and captured several of them.

One explosion was outside a hospital near a busy market packed with people shopping for feasts at the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which starts this weekend.

At least 27 people were confirmed killed and 110 people wounded, and the death toll could climb higher, said the head of the Nimroz provincial health department, Noor Ahmad Shirzada,.

“Most of the casualties were civilians,” Mr Shirzada said. He added that the suicide attacker outside the hospital appeared to have been attacking a passing police patrol but most of the damage was in a nearby market.

At least two attackers wearing suicide bomb vests and wielding weapons attacked the governor’s compound but were killed by security forces before they could detonate their explosives.

It was the first bombing of such magnitude in remote Nimroz province in years.

Nimroz, in the south-western corner of Afghanistan, is not as regularly beset by insurgent attacks as Helmand and Kandahar to the east. The sparsely populated province is partly desert, and its government representatives have repeatedly complained that it is neglected by officials who are focused on its more volatile neighbours.

However, Nimroz has seen an increase in violence recently. On Saturday, an Afghan police officer killed 11 of his fellow officers in the remote Dilaram district of the province.