10 Afghans killed in blast in Helmand province

An Afghan official says a suicide bomber has killed 10 civilians and wounded seven others in the southern province of Helmand.

Provincial spokesman Dawood Ahmadi, says the bomber targeted an Afghan army patrol on Sunday at a bridge in Gereshk, a town just north of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah. He says most of the dead were vendors selling goods along the highway.

Helmand province was the scene of a major U.S., NATO and Afghan offensive last month that took control of the town of Marjah.

Earlier on Sunday, two civilians were killed and four others wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a crowd of people celebrating the Afghan New Year in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan. That’s according to Khost police Chief Yaqoub Khan.