A huge suicide auto bombing outside a bank in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province on Thursday targeted Afghan troops and government employees waiting to collect their salaries ahead of a major Muslim holiday, killing at least 29 people, officials said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it comes as the Taliban ramp up their nationwide spring offensive despite government calls for a ceasefire during Ramadan.
In a tweet, Afghanistan government Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah condemned what he termed a terror attack against innocent Muslims during Ramadan. "They are enemies of humanity", Ghani said in a statement.
A border policeman who was at the scene of the deafening explosion said many people were missing in the ensuing chaos as bystanders, survivors, and ambulances struggled to get the most seriously wounded to the hospital.
An injured man is carried to a hospital on a strecher after a vehicle bomb attack in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province, Afghanistan.
Most of the deaths were soldiers, revealed Zawak.
Helmand province has become a stronghold for the Taliban since U.S. forces began withdrawing from the province in 2013.
It is the third time in three years that militants have targeted crowds collecting salaries at the [New Kabul] bank.
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"I am still a prisoner, I am so far from home, far from my family and far from my friends", he said and also appealed to Australian authorities to release him for captive Taliban. Almost all of Helmand has been controlled or influenced/contested for well over a year. The Taliban have also unleashed major attacks in the district.
President Donald Trump's administration has chose to escalate the war in response to the deteriorating security conditions in Afghanistan he inherited from his predecessor.
The Taliban has released a new video of two abducted foreign professors of the Kabul-based American University of Afghanistan in which the professors are calling on the US government to enter a prisoner exchange deal with the militants.
Pentagon chief Jim Mattis this month acknowledged that America still is "not winning" in Afghanistan almost 16 years after the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime.
Helmand province has been the site of intense conflict between the Taliban and Afghan and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation security forces.
Bank buildings have been repeatedly attacked in recent years in Afghanistan as civilians and military personnel receive their monthly salaries from them.
Helmand is the largest Afghan province where most of the territory is controlled or influenced by the Taliban.
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