Suicide bombing at community meeting in Afghanistan kills 5
Afghan bystanders inspect damaged vehicles at the site of an attack by suicide bombers in Kandahar on February 15, 2011.
A suicide bombing in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province Sunday has left five people dead and at least 15 more injured.
The two bombers were targeting a weekly community meeting hosted by tribal elders to take grievances from their constituents, according to province spokesman Javid Faisal, CNN reported.
The militants reportedly killed a guard outside the government compound in the town of Spin Boldak where the meeting took place, Radio Free Europe reported.
Some reports say they men then drove in and detonating a bomb from inside their vehicle, while others, including Reuters' report, said that the bombs were detonated when a group of police shot at one of the men wearing an explosives vest running towards them.
One of the council members is among the dead, in addition to four local residents, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"The figure could rise as more bodies are being searched for," Gorzang Afridi, spokesman for the police chief of Kandahar province, told Agence France Presse.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, and cited a higher death toll of eight tribal leaders, CNN reported. Kandahar, which borders Pakistan, is a central Taliban gateway for smuggling drugs and weapons.
In the nearby Helmand province, a bomb detonated at a bus station, killing a police officer and one other bystander, the Associated Press reported.
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