Violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted in 2001. — Photo by AFP

KABUL: A teenage suicide bomber killed at least 10 people and wounded 30 in an attack in a market in Afghanistan's remote northwest, a provincial governor said on Friday.

A senior provincial official was seriously wounded in the attack, Faryab province governor Abdulhaq Shafaiq told Reuters.

Shafaiq said the suicide bomber was a 16-year-old boy and the attack was launched in a bazaar in the Khoja Sabz Posh district of Faryab.

Afghan media reported a car carrying provincial council chairman Rahmatollah, who has only one name, was the target of the attack about 600 km northwest of Kabul. Rahmatollah was seriously wounded.

Violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, with the insurgents spreading their attacks out of traditional strongholds in the south and east into once relatively peaceful areas in the north and west.

The governor of Kunduz province, in northern Afghanistan, told Reuters on Wednesday insurgents had consolidated gains and were threatening several adjacent provinces like Faryab.

Violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.