KABUL, Dec 1: A suicide attack against police forces at a crowded market on Monday killed 10 people including two officers and wounded another 27 in southern Afghanistan, police said.

The attacker detonated explosives strapped to his body as he walked towards a police vehicle in Musa Qala district’s main market in Helmand province, provincial police chief Assadullah Shairzad said.

“Ten people including two policemen were killed and another 27 including two policemen were wounded in the suicide attack today,” he said.

People were buying supplies ahead of next week’s Eid-ul-Adha Muslim festival, shopkeeper Haji Mohammad Nabi told AFP. The attack killed eight civilians and left 25 wounded.

“Lots of people with superficial wounds ran away after the blast,” Nabi said.

Extremist Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the attack.

Musa Qala district has been a centre of insurgency and has fallen into the hands of Taliban militants several times in recent years.

Separately, Spanish soldiers under Nato command in western Herat province killed an Afghan army soldier and wounded two others in a friendly fire incident on Monday, a police spokesman said.

The Spanish soldiers fired at the Afghan troops’ vehicle in the early morning darkness as it sped towards them, said the spokesman.

“They ignored stop warning signs and they were shot at by the Spanish troops, killing one Afghan soldier and wounded two other Afghan soldiers,” spokesman Abdul Raof Ahmadi said.

Taliban insurgents on motor bikes meanwhile shot and killed the governor of the volatile Andar district of Ghazni province on Monday morning. His bodyguard was wounded, provincial spokesman Ismail Jahangir said.

“Abdul Rahim Desiwal was moving to Ghazni town ... when he was attacked by two motorcycle riders and he was martyred and his guard was wounded,” he said.

“This is the Taliban’s work.” A spokesman for the Taliban confirmed the militia had carried out the assassination.

“Our men killed Abdul Rahim Desiwal when he left his house,” Zabihullah Mujahid said.—AFP