KANDAHAR: A bomb exploded among spectators at a bird fight in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing a teenager and wounding up to eight other people, police said.

Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was launched against a “gambling match where local police were present”.

Gambling on animals forced to fight, from quail and roosters to camels, rams and bulls, is popular in Afghanistan but was banned by the Taliban during their rule from 1996-2001.

The motorcycle-bomb exploded at a bird fighting pit in the Greshk district of restive Helmand province where a crowd of more than 100 people had gathered to watch the regular match, said local police chief Shadi Khan.

“The explosion has killed a 13-year-old boy and wounded eight other people, all of them innocent civilians,” he said.

In 2008 a suicide blast hit a crowd of men watching dog fighting in neighbouring Kandahar province, killing up to 80 people and wounding dozens more.

The Taliban have been waging an insurgency against the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai since being ousted in a US-led invasion in 2001.