JALALABAD, Aug 3: Suicide bombers targeted the Indian consulate in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Saturday, detonating an explosives-packed car and killing nine civilians, including seven children in a nearby mosque.

A spokesman for the Taliban immediately denied responsibility for the blast that erupted outside the Indian mission and left the mosque, houses and shops in ruins.

“A car containing explosives hit a barrier near the consulate and detonated,” said Ahmadzia Abdulzai, spokesman for Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital. “There were three suicide bombers in the car.”

Nangarhar police chief Sharif Amin confirmed that the consulate was the intended target of the attack, which created a large crater in the road as survivors wearing blood-stained clothing ran for cover.

“Among the civilians killed were seven children inside the mosque,” Mr Amin said.

The interior ministry condemned the bombing as “heinous” and said nine people had died in total, with 21 other civilians wounded.

Syed Akbaruddin, a spokesman for the Indian foreign ministry in New Delhi, said that no officials were injured in the attack.

India, which has spent more than two billion dollars of aid in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime fell in 2001, has previously been targeted in the war-torn country.

In 2008, a car bomb at the Indian embassy in Kabul killed 60 people and the embassy was again hit by a suicide strike in 2009. In 2010, two guesthouses in Kabul used by Indians were attacked.

India reacted to the consulate attack with thinly-veiled criticism of Pakistan for failing to crackdown on Pakistan-based militants and their safe havens.

“This attack has once again highlighted the main threat to Afghanistan’s security and stability stems from terrorism and the terror machine that continues to operate from beyond its borders,” the Delhi government said.

Pakistan denies supporting militants active in Afghanistan.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP that their men were not involved in Saturday’s strike. “We do not claim the responsibility for this attack,” he said.

The Taliban have led a 12-year insurgency against the Afghan government since being overthrown in a US-led invasion for harbouring Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2001.

But Afghanistan is beset by a myriad of armed groups ranging from Islamist rebels to criminal gangs and militias formed during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the 1992-1996 civil war.

The Haqqani network, a militant outfit believed to be based in Pakistan, was blamed for earlier attacks on Indian targets in Afghanistan.

Nangarhar province has seen heavy fighting over recent days with more than 20 Afghan policemen and dozens of the Taliban killed when hundreds of fighters ambushed a police and military convoy on Friday.

On May 29, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) compound in Jalalabad was hit.

One Afghan guard died in that attack, which triggered widespread outrage as the ICRC is one of the most respected aid groups in Afghanistan and has remained strictly neutral during the war.

In March, seven suicide bombers attacked a police base in Jalalabad, killing five officers.

The previous month, a bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into the gates of the National Directorate of Security spy agency and detonated bombs, killing two intelligence workers.—AFP