KANDAHAR, Aug 28: A suicide blast tore through a crowded bazaar in Helmand on Monday, killing 17 people and wounding nearly 50, a provincial government spokesman said.

Witnesses of the blast in Lashkar Gah said that a man with bombs strapped to his body grabbed hold of a prominent businessman, who was also a former police chief, and detonated the explosives.

The attack was blamed on “enemies of Afghanistan,” a term Afghan officials use to refer to Taliban fighters.

A Turkish road worker was murdered and another kidnapped on a highway between Kandahar and Herat. In Farah province two policemen and three civilians were killed in an attack on a police post.—AFP