Bus strikes roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan; 9 killed

A roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday killed nine passengers traveling on a bus through Kandahar province, a spokesman for the provincial governor said. Another five passengers were wounded in the explosion, said the spokesman, Bashir Ahmadi. The passengers were all civilians traveling from one district to another when the bus hit the bomb.

He said this was the third roadside bombing since a brief cease-fire declared by the Taliban for a major Muslim holiday had ended last month. The Taliban have not claimed responsibility for any of those attacks but they did say they carried out one attack on Afghan forces since the Eid al-Fitr holiday. The truce was not officially extended but neither of the warring sides appears to want a return to all-out fighting.

On Tuesday night, a bomb exploded inside a mosque in the Afghan capital of Kabul, killing two people, including the mosque's prayer leader, and wounding eight others. Also Tuesday, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a deadly roadside bombing over the weekend that hit a bus belonging to a local TV station in Kabul, killing at least seven civilians, including a woman and several children.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)