10 killed, 9 injured in Afghanistan suicide attack

As many as 10 people, including five civilians, were killed and nine others injured in a suicide attack on a police vehicle at Jalalabad in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan on Thursday, officials said.

The attack took place around 4.15 p.m. near a security check-point, Nangarhar Governor's spokesman Attaullah Khogyanai told Efe news. The suicide bomber targeted a police car "in which nine people, including five civilians, among them a child, were martyred", he said.

Nine civilians, including three children, were also injured in the attack. They were taken to a hospital. Of them, the condition of three persons is said to be critical.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack. Nangarhar is home to both Taliban and Islamic State militants.

Both groups have in the past carried out deadly attacks in Jalalabad. But the Islamic State has been more active compared with Taliban in the last two years.

--IANS

soni/pcj