At least 17 people were killed in a car bomb explosion in an Afghan city on Thursday as crowds shopped for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, officials and a medic said.
“Seventeen bodies and 21 wounded people were brought to our hospital,” Sediqullah, a senior doctor at a hospital in the city of Puli Alam in Logar province, told AFP news agency.
The bombing came hours before a three-day ceasefire was to begin in the country for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, officials said.
“It was a suicide car bomb in a crowded place where our people were shopping for Eid al-Adha,” Dedar Lawang, spokesman for Logar’s governor, told AFP.
The ceasefire, announced by the Taliban, comes at a time when violence has risen across the war-torn country as US-brokered peace talks between the armed group and an Afghan government-mandated committee await the completion of a prisoner exchange between the two sides.
The Taliban denied responsibility for the bombing in a statement from spokesman…
