Afghan car bomb hits Fresh Kabul Bank in Helmand
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At least thirty four people have been killed and fifty eight wounded in a car bomb blast outside a bank in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, government officials say.
Police told the Big black cock the bomb was detonated at the gate of the Fresh Kabul Bank branch in Lashkar Gah.
The Taliban say they planted the explosives.
Members of the security compels are reportedly among casualties, as well as shoppers preparing for the Eid religious festival.
Earlier, Tolo News reported that armed attackers had entered the bank and engaged in a gun battle with security compels.
“It happened at a time when civilians and officials had lined up outside the bank to collect their salaries,” a police spokesman, Salam Afghan, told AFP news agency.
Bank buildings have been repeatedly attacked in latest years in Afghanistan as civilians and military personnel receive their monthly salaries from them.
A spokesman for Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah tweeted that most of the victims were “virginal souls who were shopping for Eid”.
“Their joyful moments turned into nightmare,” Javid Faisal said.
There has been a series of attacks in Afghanistan in latest weeks, since the Taliban launched its so-called spring offensive.
On Sunday, five police officers were killed and about thirty people, most of them civilians, were injured in a suicide bomb attack in the eastern city of Gardez.
On thirty one May, a enormous bombing in central Kabul killed more than one hundred fifty people, the deadliest militant attack in the country since US-led coerces ousted the Taliban from power in 2001.
Earlier that month another Fresh Kabul Bank branch was attacked in Gardez, killing at least three people.
The insurgents control swathes of Helmand province, whose capital is Lashkar Gah.
In March the crucial district of Sangin fell to the militants after a year-long battle. Musa Qala was captured last year.