Official says suicide car bomber kills 8 in Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - A suicide car bombing at a police checkpoint in southern Afghanistan killed eight people Tuesday and wounded 23, an Afghan official said.

Omar Zwak, the spokesman for the governor of Helmand province, said that the bomber detonated the explosives at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the capital of the province.

The dead included six civilians and two police officers, he said.

Alam Yar, a doctor at a hospital in Lashkar Gah, said 20 wounded people and four dead bodies had been brought there.

Afghanistan's army has been fighting to clear large parts of Helmand of Taliban militants. The insurgents have retaliated in recent days with a series of suicide attacks in towns and villages across the province.

In Baghlan province in northern Afghanistan, another bomb exploded near a hospital, killing one civilian and wounding 16, a senior police official said. The official said that the target of the bomb in the provincial capital, Puli Khumri, was a police vehicle, though no police officer was wounded.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to speak to journalists.

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Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.