Nine killed in market bomb blast in north Afghanistan
Afghan security personnel walk at the site of a suicide attack in Maymanah in Faryab province on October 17, 2011. A suicide bomber targeting the provincial head of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency blew himself up, wounding the chief and killing a child in the north of the country, police said.
A bomb explosion has killed nine people in northern Afghanistan’s Faryab province.
Police told Reuters that explosives planted on a bicycle at a market were detonated remotely on Monday, killing eight civilians and a provincial council official sitting outside a pharmacy in Faryab’s Ghormach district.
The market was busy and full of shoppers when the blast was triggered. A local told doctor told the BBC that at least 10 people had been injured. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
More from GlobalPost: Taliban peace negotiator Arsala Rahmani shot dead
Compared with Afghanistan’s restive south, Faryab province has seen relatively little violence since NATO-led forces invaded the country in 2001. But last month at least 10 people were killed in Faryab when a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a meeting of officials in the provincial capital.
Monday’s attack comes a day after Arsala Rahmani, a top member of Afghanistan's High Peace Council and close adviser to President Hamid Karzai, was shot dead in the capital city of Kabul, the Agence France Presse reported.
NATO forces are preparing to hand over responsibility for security to Afghans by 2014.
More from GlobalPost: Finding the exit in Afghanistan