Car bombing kills 17 civilians near US base in Afghanistan

Local media, citing the provincial police chief, said 25 people were killed and another 10 were wounded, all of them civilians, including women and children.

The bomber detonated the explosives at a military roadblock near the entrance to Camp Chapman, Faizullah Ghairat, the Khost city police chief, told the AFP news agency.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast in the city of Khost, near Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation previously said an “explosion” happened in Khost province, without elaborating.

The insurgents launched a countrywide offensive in late April, stepping up attacks on government and foreign targets despite the nascent peace talks in what is expected to be the bloodiest fighting season in a decade. Camp Chapman is located nearby, and still houses American soldiers.

However, it is ordinary Afghans who are paying the price, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a report released earlier this year.

Last month, the armed group launched an attack on Afghanistan’s parliament, killing five people and losing another seven of its own members.

At least 12 Afghan civilians have been killed in two separate roadside bomb explosions in the country’s east and north.

Suicide attacks with homemade bombs are among the methods most frequently used by the Taliban to strike at Afghan and worldwide forces in Afghanistan.