A suicide truck bomb in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday killed two civilians and wounded more than 40, officials said, in the latest attack since the Taliban began their annual offensive.
The attacker detonated a lorry loaded with explosives at the gate of the police headquarters in Lashkar Gah, capital of the volatile Helmand province.
Afghan troops and police are battling the Taliban in the first “fighting season” since NATO ended its combat mission and left local forces to take charge of security.
The Helmand blast came less than two days after 11 soldiers were killed in a Taliban ambush in the normally relatively peaceful western province of Herat.
“It was a suicide truck bomber detonating his vehicle at the gate of police headquarters,” provincial police spokesman Farid Ahmad Obaid said.
“Our initial reports show 40 wounded, two killed,” he said, adding that all of the casualties were civilians.
Provincial spokesman Omar Zhwak confirmed the attack.