QUETTA, July 5: Eleven people, including seven members of the Afghan border force, were killed and 12 others injured when a suicide bomber struck on the Afghan side of the Friendship Gate on the Pak-Afghan border near Chaman on Friday.

According to sources, a man on a bicycle blew himself up when members of Pakistan and Afghanistan’s border forces were checking people crossing the border.

Afghan police commander Akhtar Mohammad was reported to be among the dead.

According to an official of the Afghan border force, the commander appeared to be the target of the bomber.

Security personnel took the bodies and the injured to a hospital in the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak.

Two of the injured were taken to the Chaman Civil Hospital. All the personnel of Pakistani border force were safe.

The border was closed after the attack.

AFP adds: Afghan officials said the attacker had crossed from Pakistan to Spin Boldak.

“A suicide bomber wearing a vest of explosives crossed the border into Kandahar’s Spin Boldak district this morning and blew himself up,” Kandahar governor’s spokesman Javed Faisal told AFP.

Kandahar police chief Gen Abdul Raziq confirmed the attack.