Afghanistan bomb attack: 13 killed in car blast in Helmand

A similar car bomb attack in Lashkar Gah last week targeted the city's police headquarters

At least 13 people have been killed and many more injured in a car bomb attack in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand, officials say.

The attack on Sunday targeted a military vehicle in the district of Nawa, an area that has seen heavy fighting in recent weeks.

The victims included both soldiers and civilians, a government spokesman said.

It comes one month after Afghan security forces said they had recaptured Nawa from the Taliban.

At least 19 people were reported to have been injured in the blast near a market in the district on Sunday, Omar Zwak, the spokesperson for the Helmand governor, said.

The dead and wounded were taken to a hospital in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.

It is not yet clear who was behind the attack.

The blast comes just days after a deadly car bomb attack near the main police headquarters in Lashkar Gah.

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In June, dozens of people were killed in a similar explosion outside the New Kabul Bank in the same city.

Members of the security forces were among the casualties, as well as shoppers who were preparing for the Eid religious festival.

The Taliban later said that they had planted the explosives at the gates of the bank in Lashkar Gah in the southern Afghan province.

There has been a series of attacks in Afghanistan in recent months, since the Taliban launched its so-called spring offensive.

On 31 May, a huge bombing in central Kabul killed more than 150 people, the deadliest militant attack in the country since US-led forces ousted the Taliban from power in 2001.